The CLEAR Act of 2025 establishes a "single action" rule to prevent repeated lawsuits over energy projects and imposes stricter judicial review standards and filing deadlines for related legal challenges.
Tom Cotton
Senator
AR
The CLEAR Act of 2025 aims to streamline energy project development by limiting repeated legal challenges through a "single action" rule for all related authorizations. It also establishes a deferential standard for judicial review of federal agency decisions, requiring courts to uphold agency discretion unless an abuse is found. If procedural errors are identified, courts must remand the issue to the agency with a strict 180-day deadline for correction, during which the project authorization remains valid. Furthermore, the bill imposes strict deadlines and participation requirements for filing lawsuits challenging project authorizations.
CLEAR Act Puts Hard Limits on Lawsuits Challenging Energy Projects, Prioritizing Speed Over Oversight
The Curtailing Litigation Excess and Abuse Reform Act of 2025, or the CLEAR Act, is a major piece of legislation aimed squarely at speeding up the development of energy infrastructure—everything from power lines and storage facilities to fossil fuel pipelines and critical mineral mines. The bill’s core approach is simple: shut down legal challenges quickly and make it much harder for citizens to sue over permits.
This bill introduces a "single action" limit for legal challenges against any given energy project. Once a lawsuit challenging any part of an authorization (permit, license, etc.) for an energy project is finally decided by a court, no new lawsuit can be filed against that project—ever. This bar applies even if a different person or group files the second lawsuit, and even if they challenge a completely different permit related to the same project. Essentially, the first lawsuit uses up the public’s ability to challenge the project in court, regardless of what new issues might arise later (SEC. 2).
The One-Shot Lawsuit Rule
Think of this as a "one-and-done" policy for legal challenges. If you live near a proposed pipeline, and a local environmental group successfully sues over a water permit, great. But if that lawsuit is resolved, and six months later you discover the agency used faulty data on a different permit related to air quality, you’re out of luck. The CLEAR Act treats the entire project—and all its permits—as one common set of facts. The only exceptions are for lawsuits alleging operational violations after the project is completed, or enforcement actions brought by the government.
For project developers, this is gold. It provides certainty that once they survive the first round of legal challenges, they are essentially immune from further court delays. But for the local residents and community groups, this could be a huge loss of leverage. It means everyone has to pile all their concerns into the very first lawsuit, even if they haven't been fully developed or recognized yet.
The New, Higher Bar for Judicial Review
The CLEAR Act also changes the rules for how courts review agency decisions on these projects, making it much harder for a judge to send a faulty permit back for correction. Instead of the typical administrative review standards, a court can only rule against an agency if it finds the agency "abused its substantial discretion" in following procedural steps (SEC. 3). This is a high bar, forcing judges to defer heavily to the agency’s judgment, even if the agency made clear mistakes.
Even if a judge finds that an agency messed up the procedures—say, they didn't adequately consider public input or environmental data—the court can’t kill the permit. Instead, the court must send the authorization back to the agency with specific instructions and a hard deadline of 180 days for correction. Crucially, the authorization remains in effect while the agency is making those corrections. This means a developer could continue construction or even begin operations on a project that a court has already found to be based on flawed or incomplete legal grounds.
The Gatekeeper: Who Gets to Sue?
Perhaps the biggest change for everyday citizens is the new restriction on who can even file a lawsuit in the first place. If an authorization had a public comment period, you are barred from suing unless you meet two very strict conditions (SEC. 3):
- You must have submitted a comment that was “substantive, unique, and sufficiently detailed” by the deadline.
- That comment must have put the agency on notice of the issue you are now challenging and shown that you would suffer “direct harm” if the comment was not addressed.
This moves the goalposts significantly. It’s no longer enough to be an affected resident or an advocacy group concerned about environmental impact. You must have been a highly sophisticated legal commentator during the initial review process. For a small community group or a busy individual, this is a massive hurdle. If your initial comment was deemed not “unique” or not “sufficiently detailed” enough by a court, you lose your right to challenge the project, even if you are directly harmed by the final decision. It essentially requires citizens to act like specialized lawyers during the public comment period just to preserve their right to sue later.