CLEAR Act of 2025

Summary

Limits lawsuits and shortens court review for a wide range of energy projects by treating each project and its federal authorizations as a single legal unit, barring repeat challenges after a final court decision, and imposing strict deadlines and a highly deferential standard when courts review agency permits. It narrows who can sue, requires challenges to be filed quickly, lets permits remain in effect while agencies fix procedural problems on a short schedule, and preserves only certain enforcement actions and eminent‑domain valuation claims.

• Energy projects and their federal authorizations are treated as a single legal unit for claim‑preclusion purposes.
• After a final judicial decision on any part of a project, subsequent federal or state court suits about the same project are barred.
• Only the issuing federal agency or the project sponsor may invoke the new preclusion rule; it does not create new private causes of action.
• Courts may find procedural violations only if an agency abused its substantial discretion and must defer to agency factual and scope determinations.
• Judicial challenges must be filed within 150 days of final agency action, or they are time‑barred (absent a shorter statutory window).
• For permits with public comment periods, only commenters who submitted a unique, substantive, timely comment and would suffer direct harm can sue on the same issue.
• If a court remands for procedural correction, it must give specific instructions and a correction schedule that generally cannot exceed 180 days; remanded permits remain in effect during corrections.
• The law preserves sovereign enforcement and post‑completion operational violation claims, and excludes eminent‑domain fair‑market‑value claims from preclusion.
• Does not authorize new spending or create new federal programs; it primarily changes litigation and judicial‑review rules for covered energy projects.