Making NEPA more effective and economical for the new millennium

Abstract

This article focuses on a ten-element strategy for “streamlining” the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process in order to achieve the Act's objectives while easing the considerable burden on agencies, the public, and the judicial system. In other words, this article proposes a strategy for making NEPA work better and cost less. How these ten elements are timed and implemented is critical to any successful streamlining.

The strategy elements discussed in this paper, in no particular order of priority, are as follows: (1) integrate the NEPA process with other environmental compliance and review procedures; (2) accelerate the decision time for determining the appropriate level of NEPA documentation; (3) conduct early and thorough internal environmental impact statement (EIS) (or environmental assessment [EA]) scoping before public scoping or other public participation begins; (4) organize and implement public scoping processes that are more participatory than confrontational; (5) maintain an up-to-date compendium of environmental “baseline” information; (6) prepare more comprehensive, broad-scope “umbrella” EISs that can be used effectively for tiering; (7) encourage preparation of annotated outlines with detailed guidance that serve as a “road map” for preparation of each EIS or EA; (8) decrease the length and complexity of highly technical portions of NEPA documents; (9) increase and systematize NEPA compliance outreach, training, and organizational support; and (10) work diligently to influence the preparation of better organized, shorter, and more readable NEPA documents.