Imperfect protection: NEPA at 35 years - Spheres of Influence

Environmental Health Perspectives, April, 2004 by Harvey Black

A more recent GAO report, Forest Service: Information on Decisions Involving Fuels Reduction Activities, issued in May 2003, found that in fiscal years 2001 and 2002, 23% of 762 hazardous fuel reduction decisions were appealed under NEPA. The appeals were denied in 133 of the cases. The vast majority of these appeals, 79%, were decided in the 90 days allowed under Forest Service regulations. The Forest Service blamed staff shortages and the likelihood that certain appeals would be settled imminently for the remaining cases going beyond 90 days.

In an August 2000 GAO report, Results from a Survey of the Nation's 50 Busiest Commercial Service Airports, a number of airport officials expressed displeasure at the environmental review process required by NEPA. In this survey, officials at 9 of the 50 busiest U.S. airports complained that the NEPA process took too long. They blamed "multiple legal reviews" and accused the Federal Aviation Administration of dragging its feet in reviewing NEPA paperwork.

Horst Greczmiel, associate director for NEPA oversight at the CEQ, notes that it may be up to government agencies to improve the way they manage their NEPA analyses. "Whenever you have a large project, there are going to be practical, operational, and environmental issues," he says. "If senior management is not actively engaged and using a schedule with milestones along the way to reaching a decision, then NEPA is not going to work very well."

A NEPA review must be planned well in advance, says Jon Allan, director of environmental services for land and water management at Consumers Energy, a utility in Jackson, Michigan, and people should be prepared for the amount of time required by such a review. "You have to expect numbers of months of planning and implementation of studies. [The NEPA process] has been well within our time expectations," he says.

Building a Better NEPA

Both friends and critics of NEPA discuss the possibility of changes to the law to make it more effective. One area that may see changes is that of public participation.

"We still hear complaints that [citizen] participation was too little and too late; that decisions were already made before public notification," said geography professor C. Hobson Bryan of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, speaking at a symposium at the 2004 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science marking NEPA's 35th anniversary.

Significantly, one possible remedy to the lack of public comment lies within a recommendation from the NEPA Task Force, which was formed by the CEQ to examine the way the law functions. In its September 2003 final report to the CEQ titled Modernizing NEPA Implementation, the task force proposed that the council prepare a citizens' guide to the law with the goal of improving participation by the public.

Many other recommendations made in Modernizing NEPA Implementation call for new approaches to making the NEPA process more effective and efficient. The task force recommended improving knowledge of NEPA in federal agencies, and training personnel in NEPA principles. It also proposed making better use of information technology to open communications among NEPA shareholders. Since publication of the report, the CEQ has held four public regional roundtables to gather input on the recommendations and expects to announce which changes it will be advancing later this year.