The Trump administration late Wednesday tossed decades of environmental policy — laying the groundwork for an overhaul of how the federal government implements a bedrock environmental law.

That law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), requires the federal government to consider the environmental consequences before approving infrastructure projects ranging from roads and bridges to oil and gas pipelines to solar farms.

But NEPA is a fairly sparse law, and for decades, the federal government has relied on White House and agency regulations to spell out how to go about doing those environmental assessments.

This week, the Trump administration rescinded all White House regulations directing the implementation of the law, including some that go back to 1978.

At the same time, in a memo sent to agencies, White House official Katherine Scarlett directed agencies to “continue to follow their existing practices and procedures” for the time being.

However, the memo also directed agencies to revise their processes for taking on these reviews over the........

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