Richard Nixon signs the National Environmental Policy Act into law
On January 1, 1970, Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act into law. Familiarly known as “NEPA.” This Act became the foundation of all US environmental laws, harmonizing the application of environmental regulations between all Federal agencies, and probably more importantly, providing the public and stakeholders an opportunity to review and comment on large projects that have impacts on our habitats and environments.
Under NEPA, the lead agency on the project (e.g. Dept. of the Navy, Dept. Interior, or NOAA) would issue Environmental Assessments (EA), or Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) on any project, defining the project scope, and impacts. And where required by other statutes – like the Marine Mammal Protection Act, or the Clean Water Act, what considerations or mitigations would be employed to protect the resource in the execution of the project. (Also included in these documents are considerations for cultural and economic impacts.)
Up through 2001 these Draft EAs and EISs were published by the Government Printing Office, and would be these thick volumes the size of a telephone directory (remember those?). The process involved publishing a Draft (DEIS), and taking public comments. The Agency would then review the comments, and publish the Final EIS in two volumes – the FEIS in Vol. 1, and the public comments in Vol. 2, noting the location in the FEIS where the particular public comments were addressed.
The last printed DEIS I worked on was on the US Navy proposed Low Frequency Active Sonar system in 2001. I still have the volumes, all bristling with sticky-notes and colored with yellow highlighter. They take up about 6 inches of shelf space.
Soon after that the Government Printing Office began publishing the documents in PDF form – saving a hellofa lot of paper, and also making them easier to review and markup. This was handled through a document portal, “Regulations.gov.”
Unfortunately, while it was easier for the public to engage in the process, there were organizations who misused the public comment feature as a proxy for a petition; so when a large DEIS might get 300-600 qualified comments, it might also get millions feisty snits generated by various advocacy organizations through their members.
This habit really picked up in the last administration, forcing the reviews to be read by scanners, and the comment feedback tracking becoming almost useless. This was exacerbated by the agencies publishing “locked” PDFs, which could not be marked up – so text of interest had to be copied to a working document, losing context to the pagination and links contained in the original.
The last administration also sabotaged NEPA in order to “streamline” the permitting process. While the “revised” NEPA is still in place, the current review process has really opened up, with a really helpful update on the Regulations.gov website. And the environmental NGOs are also handling things more efficiently.
With the flood of offshore wind projects in various stages of development, we’ve been collaborating with a lot of other groups, including National Wildlife Federation, NRDC, Southern Environmental Law Center, Audubon, and others, crafting comments. This allows a gathering of experts with differing foci, (legal, fisheries, engineering, and noise pollution, for example), to create unified and systematic critiques of the projects.
This will also make it much easier for the agency reviewers to synthesize a comprehensive critique and recommendations of the projects, knowing that they are qualified and well substantiated.
Just submitted this week are critiques and recommendations for the Empire Wind Construction and Operations plan in the New York Bight, and the Request for Interest in offshore wind leasing in the Gulf of Mexico.
Photo: Nixon White House Photographs, 1/20/1969 – 8/9/1974 Collection: White House Photo Office Collection (Nixon Administration), 1/20/1969 – 8/9/1974 – https://catalog.archives.gov/id/27580121, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93960018
