RED Tape Act

This section gives the Act the short title "Reducing and Eliminating Duplicative Environmental Regulations Act," which may also be called the "RED Tape Act."

This section would change section 309 of the Clean Air Act, the law that requires the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to review and publicly comment on the environmental impact of certain federal items. Under current law, the Administrator must review and comment in writing on three kinds of items: legislation proposed by any federal department or agency, newly authorized federal construction projects and other major federal agency actions that trigger the environmental impact statement requirement in section 102(2)(C) of the National Environmental Policy Act (Public Law 91-190), and proposed regulations published by any federal department or agency. This section would remove the second and third categories, so the Administrator's mandatory review and public comment duty would cover only legislation proposed by a federal department or agency. The Administrator would no longer be required to review or comment on newly authorized federal construction projects, other major federal agency actions subject to that environmental impact statement requirement, or proposed federal regulations. This section would also make a matching change to the next part of section 309: currently, if the Administrator finds that a reviewed piece of legislation, action, or regulation is unsatisfactory from the standpoint of public health, welfare, or environmental quality, the Administrator must publish that finding and refer the matter to the Council on Environmental Quality. This section would limit that publish-and-refer requirement to unsatisfactory legislation only, since actions and regulations would no longer fall under the review requirement in the first place.