1	A statement of values and forty years of field trials

Introduction

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) became political necessity in United States when the sites, sounds, and odors of environmental damage became all too apparent to the American public. Highlighted by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) and Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb (1968), and by gruesome photos of devastation, pressure built for government intervention. Some argued that these books, along with magazine articles and photos, were overdramatic exaggerations of reality (Maddox 1972). Yet historians and other scholars who have examined the impact of urban and industrial development during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the United States report major impacts on public health and on the water, air, and land environments. For example, Clay McShane (1994), David Stradling (1999), and John Cumbler (2005) paint national and regional portraits of the environmental insults of uncontrolled development and pollution. Andrew Hurley (1995), Martin Melosi (2001), and Joel Tarr (2003) focus on Gary (IN), the South, and Pittsburgh (PA), where industrial emissions and lack of infrastructure were particularly acute.

The stories in these fascinating books highlight a deep struggle between public health/environmental perspectives and the relentless, seemingly un-checked growth of capital, the inconsistent role of elected officials and government agencies in protecting public health and the environment, the exclusion of the most seriously affected populations, many instances of poor environmental science and distortion of science, and the lack of a moral imperative to protect the environment either for the current population or for future generations. These graphic American environmental histories were NEPA's context.

NEPA: an overview

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 (Public Law 91-190) was signed by President Richard Nixon January 1, 1970, asserted a national environmental policy, and established the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). NEPA's preamble succinctly stated the law's broad objectives:

The purposes of this Act are: To declare a national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment; to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man; to enrich the understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the Nation; and to establish a Council on Environmental Quality.

NEPA, Purpose, Sec. 2, p. 1 (via www.epa.gov/lawsregs/laws/nepa.html).

Title I, the focus of this book, describes the policies and goals of the act; Title II created the CEQ, defined its responsibilities, and provided for its funding. The following section provides highlights of the act that are especially relevant to this book.

Title I, Section 101

Section 101 has three parts. Part (a) declared that man and nature should exist in “productive harmony.” Part (b) instructed the federal government to use its powers to achieve six objectives, as follows:

1. 1 fulfill the responsibilities of each generation as trustee of the environment for succeeding generations;
2. 2 assure for all Americans safe, healthful, productive, and aesthetically and culturally pleasing surroundings;
3. 3 attain the widest range of beneficial uses of the environment without degradation, risk to health or safety, or other undesirable and unintended consequences;
4. 4 preserve important historic, cultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage, and maintain, wherever possible, an environment which supports diversity, and variety of individual choice;
5. 5 achieve a balance between population and resource use which will permit high standards of living and a wide sharing of life's amenities; and
6. 6 enhance the quality of renewable resources and approach the maximum attainable recycling of depletable resources.

NEPA, Title 1, Sec. 101, p. 1.

Title I, Section 101, part (c) reminds us that “each person has a responsibility to contribute to the preservation and enhancement of the environment.”

Title I, Section 102

Section 102 focuses on administration of law in eight parts (a–h). Part (a) tells federal agencies to use an interdisciplinary approach, including natural and social sciences, environmental design, and planning. Part (b) instructs the agencies to work with the CEQ and to include “unquantified environmental amenities and values [so that they] may be given appropriate consideration in decision making along with economic and technical considerations.”

Part (c) of Section 102 is the focus of this book. It calls for the “inclusion in every recommendation or report on proposals for legislation and other major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment, a detailed statement by the responsible official on –

(i)   the environmental impact of the proposed action,

(ii) any adverse environmental effects which cannot be avoided should the proposal be implemented,

(iii) alternatives to the proposed action,

(iv) the relationship between local short-term uses of man's environment and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity, and

(v) any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources which would be involved in the proposed action should it be implemented.

NEPA, Title 1, Sec. 102, p. 2.

Part (c) also requires formal consultation. The responsible federal agencies are instructed to obtain comments from “any federal agency which has jurisdiction by law or special expertise with respect to any environmental impact involved,” as well as “appropriate federal, state, and local agencies, which are authorized to develop and enforce environmental standards.” Finally, a copy of the impact statement is to be made available to the President, the CEQ, and the public throughout the review process.

Provisions of sections d–i of 102 include, but are not limited to, recognizing environmental impacts as international, calling for efforts to support programs that are consistent with US foreign policy, making information about environmental quality available to states, counties and municipalities, as well as to institutions and individuals, and requiring responsible agencies to cooperate with the CEQ.

Section 103 of Title I requires the federal agencies to examine their policies, regulations, and authorities, and to propose to the President any adjustments that must be made to bring these into conformance with NEPA. Sections 104 and 105 state that NEPA should not contravene federal agencies’ existing statutory obligations and that the NEPA's goals are “supplementary” to their existing authorizations.

Initial interpretations

NEPA in general, and the environmental impact statement (EIS) specifically, is a legal tool to ensure that major federally initiated projects and new or substantially modified programs undergo a comprehensive review before committing major resources and beginning construction or implementation – in other words, it insists that federal agencies look before they leap, not that they cannot leap. NEPA calls for a multi-agency, multidisciplinary, open public assessment of the environmental impacts, as well as economic, health, and social impacts of each project's or program's proposals, and it requires consideration of alternatives to the proposed action.

The EIS forces consideration of NEPA's broad goals and preparation of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) on any proposed federal actions that could significantly affect the environment. It mandates that each EIS consider five broad environmental impact issues: environmental impact; unavoidable adverse impacts; alternatives to the proposed action; short-term uses versus long-term productivity; and irreversible commitments of resources. Responding to these five issues has been a challenge for federal agencies, which, with rare exceptions, previously had been able to design and implement projects with little if any consultation.

An assumption of the law is that intra- and inter-agency analysis, accompanied by input from private and public parties, will shape better decisions, that is, will avoid options that will exceed environmental standards and unduly burden populations, and at the same time promote options that enhance the ecological, economic, and social environments.

As noted above, NEPA was set up to be administered by the Council on Environmental Quality, which was established under Title II, Section 201. CEQ issued guidelines setting forth the rules and procedures agencies must follow to prepare an EIS. These guidelines (my copy from 1978 is forty-four pages long), with the aid of about forty years of practice and legal interpretation, have shaped the scope of the EIS document and its review.

The requirement to prepare an EIS applies to a long list of actions by federal agencies. The following six are illustrative, although they do include the bulk of conceivable projects (Kreske 1996; Bregman 1999):

• projects developed through federal grants
• planned federal projects
• legislative proposals
• changes in agency policies and operating procedures
• actions requiring federal licenses, permits, and other approvals
• actions with possibly controversial impacts.

The requirements of Section 102 (2) (c) have led to inclusion of the following six topics in EISs:

• description of the existing environment
• description of alternatives
• probable impacts of each alternative
• identification of the alternative chosen and the evaluation that led to this choice
• detailed analysis of the probable impacts of the proposal
• description of the techniques intended to minimize any adverse impacts.

Court rulings have demonstrated that federal agencies cannot leave out any information. EISs have also been rejected because credible alternatives to the proposed action were not considered at all, or alternatives were not adequately presented; this includes the option not to undertake any project at all. The beneficial or adverse impacts of each alternative are expected to be estimated by comparing the expected future conditions of the preferred alternative with existing conditions, the no-action alternative, and any other alternatives presented in the EIS. Hence, ideally, a multidisciplinary group should design and carry out an EIS, because a multidisciplinary team is unlikely to overlook an important impact.

A full EIS is the well known option for responding to the requirements of part (c) of Section 102. But it is not the only option. When a federal agency proposes an action, it has three options, as follows:

• “Categorical exclusion” is an option if the federal agency and CEQ decide that the action does not pose a threat individually or collectively to the environment. Typical examples would be road and bridge repair – in essence, minor adjustments. Categorical exclusion has become more controversial in recent years (see Chapter 8).
• An environmental assessment (EA) is the first step to determine if a full-blown EIS is required. If the EA process finds no significant impact, then a “finding of no significant impact” (FONSI) is made. However, if the proposal implies some “extraordinary circumstance,” then a full-blown EIS can be required. There may be some public involvement in the EA process. (See Chapter 7 for an illustration.)
• An EIS is required for proposals with the potential to substantially impact the environment.

The process has seven steps:

1. 1 The EIS process begins with a notice of intent to prepare an EIS.
2. 2 This is followed by a scoping process, in which the investigation is designed. Public involvement is critical at the scoping stage (see Chapter 2 for an illustration). A good scoping process should prevent serious stakeholder-related problems later on.
3. 3 The third stage is preparation of a draft EIS. Each agency has its own protocol, but each would go through the following steps. The agency would list the information needed, and review and then categorize the adequacy of available data. It would begin filling critical data gaps and decide on a format for a draft EIS. Then it would prepare a project work plan and begin to fill in all the data gaps to prepare a draft EIS. Various parts of the preliminary draft EIS would be prepared as the information is gathered and analyzed.
4. 4 Sections would be circulated to internal staff and modified. After reviewing all internal staff comments, the federal agency would prepare a draft EIS for distribution to other federal agencies, other government bodies, and the public.
5. 5 These external parties would review the draft EIS and comment, doubtless leading to some revisions of the document, albeit not necessarily alteration of the proposed action recommendation.
6. 6 A final EIS is then prepared, circulated and presented.
7. 7 After reviews have been completed, including responding to comments, the federal agency issues a record of decision.

Federal agencies differ in the extent to which they use categorical exclusion, adopt an environmental assessment as the final document, or proceed to a full EIS. For example, over a two-year period, about 90% of proposed Federal Highway Administration projects used categorical exclusion, 7% environmental assessments, and 3% EISs. The Army Corps of Engineers produced about 4500 environmental assessments and only seventy-five to a hundred EISs. The Department of Energy prepared forty-nine environmental assessments and eleven EISs (Committee on Resources 2006).

The CEQ and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are responsible for reviewing the EISs. The CEQ determines if the federal agency has met the law's requirements. The EPA is charged with evaluating the adequacy of the documents. The EPA can declare a draft EIS “adequate,” “insufficient information,” or “inadequate.” Insufficient information has come to mean that more information is required to assess the impact and/or that plausible alternatives have not been adequately assessed. A declaration of inadequate implies a need for substantial data gathering and analysis.

Tzoumis and Finegold (2000) and Tzoumis (2007) have examined trends in EPA ratings of the quality of draft federal EISs, beginning in the 1970s. The authors observed that many EISs do not have a formal rating. With that caveat noted, 64% of draft EISs were rated by the EPA as insufficient information, 32% as adequate, and 5% as inadequate information. The authors expected the rating of draft EISs to improve, but that proved not to be the case.

At the final EIS stage, the EPA's options range from no objection to three levels of concern about the proposed action. A declaration of “environmental concern” indicates that the EPA has identified actions that should be avoided in order to “fully protect” the environment. “Environmental objections” is a stronger declaration, pointing to impact that should be avoided in order to even “adequately” protect the environment. The strongest objection is “environmentally unsatisfactory,” which expresses opposition to the proposed alternative because of expected serious adverse environmental impacts. Tzoumis and Finegold (2000) and Tzoumis (2007) report that a little over 1% of EISs were rated as “unsatisfactory,” and 51% had a rating of “no objections.” The remaining 48% received ratings with some objections.

Objections to EISs are common – these typically range from issues concerning information and science in the case of government agencies to disagreements about values in the case of citizen groups (see Chapters 2, 4–5, and 7 for illustrations). After a quarter-century of challenges, the federal government created the US Institute for Environmental Conflict and Resolution as part of the Morris Udall Foundation, to try to resolve differences and to train individuals as dispute-resolution professionals. The Institute brings people together, develops a plan to resolve the issues, selects a facilitator, oversees the process, and in many other ways will try to settle conflicts before they are brought to court. However, the Foundation notes that success is not guaranteed, and it describes some of the reasons why a negotiated settlement sometimes is not possible (www.udall.gov). Its recommendations are consistent with this author's experiences, and Chapters 4 and 7 illustrate two cases where the value issues are quite striking.

The federal court system is the ultimate decision-maker, and the US courts have been a key player in defining each agency's role and obligations under NEPA (CEQ 1997a,b, 2007; Weiland 1997; Committee on Resources 2006).

While the role of the federal courts is often highlighted in debates about when and how to apply NEPA, in reality some of the federal agencies have developed sophisticated protocols for determining which actions require an environmental assessment or EIS (see for example US Department of Energy 2009a; also see CEQ 1997a; Committee on Resources 2006). Overall, after four decades of trial and error, the environmental impact process has evolved into a broadly applied and emulated legal device. What did its designers hope for, and what were initial experiences?

Recalling NEPA's architects

NEPA was shaped by elected officials and their advisers, who saw environmental protection as a major public policy issue. Perlstein (2008) suggests that President Nixon did not care much about environmental protection one way or the other (p. 460); he was in search of a constituency (see also Flippen 2000; Lindstrom and Smith 2001). However, Nixon's colleagues John Ehrlichman (former land-use attorney) and General Curtis LeMay were self described environmental supporters. In addition, Senators Edmund Muskie (known by some as “ecology Ed” and Henry “Scoop” Jackson were seen by Nixon and each other as likely opponents in the 1972 presidential election. Nixon was aware that environmental concern among the public had tripled since 1965.

The President made a pragmatic decision to support environmental protection, with NEPA as the first clear legislative signal. President Nixon, asserts Flippen (2000), believed that he could not win the 1972 presidential election with an environmental platform, but he could be beaten up without one. Senator Jackson focused a good deal of his attention on NEPA, whereas Senator Muskie focused on efforts that would lead to the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.

Stepping back from the 1960s political environment that created NEPA, the law has been widely praised for stating a national environmental policy, an environmental ethic and vision of the future, and for emphasizing multidisciplinary thinking and planning (CEQ 1997a,b; Kaufman 1997; Committee on Resources 2006). Kaufman (1997) declared it to be the USA's sustainable development policy before the expression was popular. In 1969, Senator Jackson of the State of Washington, the chief legislative architect of NEPA, believed it to be the “most important” and “far reaching” environmental and conservation measure ever enacted in the United States, and he hoped that the CEQ would advise the President of the United States and that the EPA would work to protect environmental quality by its regulatory powers (Alfano, undated).

The original version of NEPA did not include the action-forcing mechanism of Section 102 (2) (c). Professor Lynton Caldwell of Indiana University, who was a consultant to Senator Jackson, developed the idea for an action-forcing mechanism. He called for federal agencies to evaluate the effect of their proposals on the environment, and he emphasized the need for these analyses to be thoughtful and rigorous (Caldwell 1982, 1989). Caldwell and other proponents felt that the impact statement was a strategic counter to possible indifference or even hostility toward NEPA by federal agencies, elected legislators, and President Nixon, who had an uncomfortable relationship with the environmental community.

While Section 102 forced an action by the federal agencies, Dreyfus and Ingram (1976) struggled with some of its less-than-precise terminology. For example, the expression “to the full extent possible” can be interpreted as requiring a substantial amount of information, or only information that is relatively easy to acquire. That impact statements were to be prepared for “major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of human environment” is also open to debate. Is a major federal action construction of a new span over a major river? Or is it merely repaving the bridge and adding better lighting? Perhaps the most debated element is the call for describing “alternatives” to the proposed action. Are these alternatives all variations of the same theme, or are they entirely different approaches?

Dreyfus and Ingram (1976) were forgiving of NEPA's drafters because they realized that the law was going to be applied across many different kinds of projects, by many different agencies. Professor Caldwell (1989, 1998) demonstrates his ambivalence when on the one hand he labeled NEPA as the American environmental “Magna Carta,” and on the other hand notes that it has not fulfilled its potential because of inconsistent application by federal agencies, narrow definition by the federal courts, and wide variations in interest in the law by the executive branch.

While Caldwell (1989, 1998) could not ignore the limitations of his creation, and called for a constitutional amendment to elevate environmental protection to be equal to property and civil rights, Dreyfus and Ingram (1976) concluded that NEPA had already achieved far more than anyone could have anticipated in the United States and internationally. They focused on widespread access to the NEPA process and the legal leverage of participants (see also Keysar 2005).

The most obvious ambivalence generated by NEPA that this author has read is the assessment of Oliver Houck, who gives Caldwell more credit than Caldwell gives himself. First, he says that:

At the end of the day, NEPA did not do all that it was intended to do. Its goals remain goals. Its impact statement mechanism has indeed become something of the catechism, an institutionalized ritual in which the original words have lost their meaning.

(Houck 2000, pp. 178–180)

And yet he adds:

NEPA's great contribution . . . is the environmental impact statement. It is not what the statement says that is important. It is in what comes before, and what agencies have to investigate and learn and listen to, and what they have to fear from other agencies and environmental groups, the press, the reviewing court and in the everyday responses and accommodations they have to make. The NEPA ideas of disclosure, public participation, alternatives, and judicial review are blockbuster stuff as well as for the developed countries of Europe and are absolutely revolutionary stuff for developing nations in Latin America in the Far East and for those, like Croatia and Cuba, who are also signing on. In this one regard, NEPA has been the largest environmental success in the world.

(ibid.)

Initial media attention

NEPA was signed on January 1, 1970, and controversies underscored by the ambivalence in these introductory comments began immediately. I use four news articles to summarize the tone. Writing in The New York Times, Hill (1970) characterized the initial report of the CEQ as “less a record of accomplishment than a laundry-list of problems to be grappled with.” While praising the idea of moderating “the environmentally traumatic propensities of tunneledvisioned Federal agencies,” he characterized the first five months of the program as “rough” and noted that so far only twenty-five impact statements had been done, and none on the supersonic transport (SST).

In November, The New York Times (1970) reported that: “the Nixon Administration appears to have decided that it can withhold environmental impact studies from the public until the decisions they influence have been made and announced.” The article quoted CEQ chair Russell Train as follows: “there is no question that there is a tendency to prepare a section 102 statement after a decision has been made.” The article provided examples of when federal agencies released impact statements at the time of making the decision, and examples of impact statements released in advance of their decision.

A few days later, Senator Philip Hart of Michigan stated that “several executive agencies are undermining the effectiveness of the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to file required environmental impact statements” (Kenworthy 1970a). A spokesperson for the Council reported that they had insufficient staff to review even the 200 EISs that they had received.

On December 2, 1970, Senator Muskie accused the administration of not making available critiques of the SST prior to the congressional vote on it. A spokesperson for the US Department of Transportation replied that it was inappropriate to release reports in a piecemeal fashion (Kenworthy 1970b). With the SST as the focus of their ire, congressional representatives continued to assail the administration for suppressing criticism of the SST. Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin, for example, stated “if the National Environmental Policy Act is to have any teeth at all, Congress and the public must have access to comments by Federal Agencies on proposed Federal actions, whether or not those comments happen to support the program under consideration.” (Kenworthy 1970c). The administration was accused of “government secrecy of the worst kind, making a mockery of the democratic process and of the National Environmental Policy Act.”

The year 1971 was a much better year for President Nixon's environmental initiatives and NEPA. Nixon introduced a broad set of environmental proposals (Flippen 2000; Perlstein 2008) that led to the clean air and water legislation. With regard to NEPA, Russell Train (1971), chair of CEQ, announced that CEQ proposed new federal procedures for EISs that would require that the public receive and be able to make comments in the early stages of EIS preparation. William Ruckelshaus, first head of the EPA, was praised for his candor and a variety of actions, including a letter criticizing the Alaskan oil pipeline EIS (Kenworthy 1971a). The most obvious change in 1971 was that organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense, and the Sierra Club began to use the EIS process to confront federal agency decision-making about coal mining (Vecsey 1971), dams (Bryant 1971), underground nuclear testing (Lapp 1971), the “big sky” resort south of Bozeman, Montana (Kenworthy 1971b), drilling for oil near Santa Barbara, California (New York Times 1971a), the Teton River dam project in Idaho (Blair 1971a), the Alaskan pipeline (New York Times 1971b), coal leases west of the Mississippi River (Franklin 1971), a nuclear power plant in Illinois (New York Times 1971c), a hydroelectric facility (Kenworthy 1971b), a highway extension on southern Long Island (Andelman 1971), offshore oil leases (Blair 1971b), and others. These cases involved actions proposed by the Tennessee Valley Authority, US Army Corps of Engineers, US Atomic Energy Commission, US Forest Service, Department of the Interior, and Department of Transportation. In each of these cases, the media used reviews of EISs by EPA, national environmental organizations and local citizens, and elected officials.

From no public information about environmental impact, within a year of the passage of NEPA, thousands of new environmental policy documents were being created. Notably, on June 12, 1971, the federal government announced that the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) would provide a subscription service, summarizing EISs and other federal environmental action, for five dollars a year. NEPA had created a new product to market, and the author subscribed to it for many years, and periodically ordered a microfiche copy of an EIS.

Praise and criticism

NEPA and its state and local progeny have had four decades of field trials. This section summarizes the major strengths and then weaknesses of the EIS process.

Praise

Beginning with strengths, one important accomplishment of this process at the federal, state, and local levels has been its widespread use as a substitute for planning. The EIS has become in practice an explicit assertion that development requires early planning to avoid degrading the quality of the environment (Best 1972; see also Chapter 8). Early assessments typically emphasized the potential for better agency decisions. For example, Caldwell in a foreword to a book by Richard Andrews (1976, pp. xi–xiii) observed that the federal departments and agencies had become too specialized, unable to see past their specific missions, and insulated from public values and attitudes. Caldwell described NEPA as an example of American self-government.

NEPA is often viewed as a conscious-raising statement, expressed locally in the EIS and nationally in programmatic EIS analyses. The law rejects the idea of economic growth without consideration of environmental, public health, and social consequences, and without reflection. An EIS should offer a more comprehensive, interdisciplinary analysis, including estimates of the secondary and induced effects of a proposed action, and should stimulate an appreciation of the complexity of large-scale developments.

The EIS process created a system of checks and balances between federal, state, and local governments. A federal agency can legally ignore opposition to a proposal by other federal agencies, states, localities, and the public. But this is a dangerous political step, as government agencies typically try to avoid open clashes with their counterparts (Oregon State University 1973). Best (1972, p. 19) recognized the challenge to federal agencies, noting that “the most significant consequence of the new policy is that it places the burden of proof on the initiators of new developments – the federal agencies and their clients in industry.”

Part of NEPA's appeal is the widespread assertion that it has changed practice by federal agencies, which has led to better decisions. NEPA, say its proponents, has been instrumental in the cancellation or postponement of highways, dams, airports, nuclear waste disposal programs, outer continental shelf leases, and other proposals. More often, the scoping, preparation, and presentation of the results have caused changes in locations, designs, and other changes to mitigate undesirable environmental effects (CEQ 1997; Committee on Resources 2006). Doubtless, there are many such instances, and it would be fruitful to have these documented systematically (see Chapters 2 and 7 for examples).

While NEPA's gentle nudge upon inter-federal policy outcomes merits more acknowledgment, impact on other government bodies is almost always acknowledged. NEPA's scoping process is critical insofar as it directly pits the tendency to be multidisciplinary, all-inclusive, and precautionary to protect public health and the environment, brought to the table by agencies that are not proposing a specific project, against the tendency of the agency proposing the project to try to economize by narrowly construing the scope of the EIS (Snell and Cowell 2006, Jain et al. 2002). NEPA clearly encourages multidisciplinary agency and community participation, including obtaining input and requiring carrying through comments from multiple parties through the process. NEPA's call for public participation has been well received (see Chapter 8 for further discussion). Early public participation should reduce opposition.

In the original act, the federal government is the focus. However, some states and local governments in the United States and other countries have developed NEPA-like processes. Their requirements vary. Compared with the national law, the progeny typically require less detailed content analyses, and focus on private actions as well as public ones (there are exceptions, such as California). They include a wide variety of administrative or overseeing approaches, pre-emption with regard to NEPA (federal law will normally take precedence), and wide differences in public participation requirements. Writing a few years after the passage of NEPA, Hagman (1974) evaluated some of the strengths and weaknesses of these progeny, although he noted wide variation by state. His praise focuses on NEPA primarily as a substitute for land-use planning in states that have very little power to control land use, and on the efforts he sees by states in their legislation to balance environmental, economic, and social concerns. His major concerns are the fear that aesthetic criteria that protect the interests of affluent individuals will be used to route unwanted land uses through poor areas, and that a state EIS is a “ridiculous waste of resources in comparison to a comprehensive planning process” (Hagman 1974, p. 48). Chapter 8 discusses this author's views of NEPA as a substitute for a real US planning legislation.

Most local government EIS requirements are directed primarily at private development, and the responsible overseers are usually planning, zoning, and environmental commissions. Some of the overseers have the legal authority to approve, deny, or request the alteration of a development proposal, where others are advisory.

Yet across these different geographic scales – international, regional, state, and local – EIS staff have cited instances ranging from the preservation of dunes and clusters of unusual trees to the cancellation and modification of massive projects. Cumulatively, these cases led some early commentators to conclude that the EIS process has been successful (Oregon State University 1973).

To summarize the praise, the EIS process should lead to better planning; raise people's consciousness; result in better communication between scientists, agency leadership, and the public; and create a series of checks and balances, especially when there is good leadership (Keysar and Steinemann, 2002). Andrews (1976) characterized NEPA at the time of passage as “unremarkable.” It had only two titles, could be printed on four pages (my original is five pages), and was uncontroversial, passing through Congress in ten months, with no dissenting votes in the Senate and only fifteen in the House. Andrews added that, in the first few years (1970–75), many proposed federal actions had been modified because of NEPA, and also that twenty-two foreign nations (now well over 100) and some states and local governments had emulated NEPA.

Criticism

The criticisms of NEPA probably exceed the praise, at least as this author measures them by volume of pages collected. Some have charged that the EIS process has been less effective than it could be. One repeated criticism is the inherent contradiction in NEPA and many of the state and local progeny. The law creates the opportunity for considering environmental factors in government actions. Yet Section 102 (2) (c) is a procedural requirement. If the procedure is followed correctly, the federal agency can make a decision that many think severely degrades the environment (Steinemann, 2001). Jenny (quoted in Oregon State University 1973, p. 14), a former member of CEQ, characterized CEQ's role as a “soft-voiced advisor and commentator, and where necessary, guide.” He went on to assert that Congress wanted the federal agencies to take this responsibility upon themselves, and not for the CEQ to be an enforcer.

Agencies can arguably circumvent the intent of the law by not securing involvement until the proposal is too far along to be changed, although it is more difficult now than forty years ago. In other words, an excellent document may make no difference. Frustration with this problem led Fairfax (1978) to argue that NEPA has wasted environmentalists’ resources on paper shuffling, and that their time would have been more effectively spent trying to change agency decision-making authority.

A second criticism of NEPA and some state laws is that private sector development is not included. Since the vast majority of development is by the private sector, this should be a serious shortcoming, although some state and local governments have developed NEPA-like requirements for private and not-for-profit projects, and more important private development is included if federal grants are part of a project.

Administrative discretion is a third issue. Some contend that many actions with environmentally significant impacts are not accompanied by an EIS because agencies decide that the actions are not “major” or “significant,” or do not constitute an agency “proposal” or “action.” In addition, to avoid preparation of an EIS, or to make sure that one is not vulnerable to legal opposition, documents are infused with as much information as possible to protect the agency's position. Although the information is sometimes interesting, it often amounts to a conglomeration of not exactly relevant information that avoids the significant environmental impacts of a proposal. This problem is especially evident in the discussions of alternatives, which have been criticized for being limited and perfunctory by some, and unrealistically narrow by others.

Yet another criticism focuses on scientific evaluation of impacts. No matter how detailed or comprehensive the document may be, and even if the EIS is scoped by an interdisciplinary team, there is no way of ensuring that all impacts considered significant by all parties will be included. Some scientific facts and relationships are missing because the team did not think about them; a good argument for their inclusion was not offered to the project design team; or information or data were lacking.

Lawrence (2000a,b,c) notes that not all impacts are significant, and accordingly not all missing information is important. He offers suggestions for defining a significant impact. Atkinson et al. (2006) assess court responses to missing information, and report that courts have compared the need for missing information with the cost of acquiring it, and have considered the possible adverse effects of taking action without the data. To avoid a delay, Atkinson et al. (2006) recommend that agencies should explain how the benefits of receiving are greater than the costs of delay.

Two further concerns related to science are measuring and weighting impacts. The impact of some environmental hazards is not known, that is, some have multiplicative rather than additive effects on people and the environment. Another challenge is comparing the impacts of clearly measurable effects, such as dissolved oxygen and pH, with more subjective indicators of aesthetic and cultural impacts. At best, researchers are comparing apples (e.g. water quality, air quality) and oranges (e.g. cultural artifacts, job affects) (Oregon State University, 1973; Ortolano 1973; Warner 1973; Baecher et al. 1975; Cheremisinoff and Morresi 1977; Greenberg et al. 1978). Overall, the limits inherent in estimating environmental impacts are an unending source of criticism of the EIS. It is always possible to cast suspicion on the science of impact statements. And because some view the EIS as an advocacy document rather than a scientific document prepared to engage stakeholders, they are inherently suspicious of the data and the conclusions (Oregon State University 1973). The case study chapters in this book (2–7) offer ample opportunities for such questions.

Some experts feel that so-called “evangelistic” environmentalists and some members of the public become too polarized and refuse to grasp the scientific subtleties considered in an EIS (Oregon State University 1973). The counter is that instead of focusing on the important impacts, some assert, experts try their best to avoid providing scientific “ammunition” to adamant opponents, rather than isolating and dealing with the key environmental problems.

Person (2006) offers a strong argument that the most difficult sticking points are about values and interests, not about data and models. Confronting values and interests is more important than trying to gather more and better information. Vicente and Partidario (2006) argue that the success of the teaching environmental assessment depends upon enhancing communication among a myriad of stakeholders with different beliefs, convictions, values, experiences, needs, and other factors, all of which lead to different world views (see Chapter 8). Wood (2008) offers recommendations for communicating the significance of environmental impacts, but primarily explains how difficult it is to present scientific results while also placing them in context.

The most widely publicized criticisms from both proponents and opponents are economic. Some argue that government has made little investment in the EIS process. They cite substantial staff cuts at CEQ and EPA to argue that more resources are needed to protect and preserve the quality of the human environment. They add that the EIS process has created employment for environmental and social scientists, administrators, and lawyers. Without the EIS process, arguably some of the major advancements in monitoring the environment and modeling contaminants would not have been made. These studies, argue proponents of the EIS, were more than worth the effort because they will avoid both short-term and multigenerational impacts that could have imposed greater future costs. However, one of the standard criticisms of EIA is its failure to examine and portray cumulative impacts, including economic ones (CEQ 1997; Committee on Resources 2006; Tang et al. 2009; Warnback and Hilding-Rydevik 2009). It is one that is voiced in many of the case study chapters in this book.

In contrast, the loudest voices during the past fifteen years have focused on the economic costs associated with the EIS process. Representatives of the business community contend that the EIS process is a slow-growth policy, and in some cases a no-growth policy, that hurts the economy. They point to time involved in preparing and reviewing EISs and the inflationary impact on costs. This inflationary impact is further increased when delays result from NEPA litigation and potential injunctions, which they underscore in their arguments.

Two post-year-2000 assessments

This section focuses on two of the many reviews of NEPA, conducted during the administration of Presidents William J. Clinton and George W. Bush. I have chosen these two because they clearly demarcate different views of the EIS process prior to the Obama administration.

NEPA: Lessons Learned and Next Steps. Oversight
Hearing. US House of Representatives, 109th Congress,
First Session (Committee on Resources 2006)

I have quoted liberally from the report because the specific words of some of these witnesses are illuminating, and even some of the more diplomatically worded testimony is refreshingly frank.

One hearing was held in Washington DC and five others at sites across the nation, with a clear southern and western geographic bias: Spokane (WA), Lakeside (AZ), Nacogdoches (TX), Rio Rancho (NM), and Norfolk (VA). The Committee invited representatives with different starting perspectives. The spokespersons provided verbal and written testimony, and were questioned by members of Congress. Several of the invited guests provided supplementary testimony in response to questions from members of Congress. Several members of Congress expressed their views. This record is so important because the unedited testimony sharpened the language of the witnesses.

The eighty-eight-page transcript does not call for the complete abrogation of the law. Every witness supported the statement of environmental principles. Representative and Chairperson Cathy McMorris from the State of Washington summarized her views as follows: “We have heard countless times and in countless ways that NEPA is a good law born of good intentions.” (p. 1). James Connaughton, chair of CEQ under President George W. Bush, noted: “NEPA is remarkable for its simplicity. [It is] a story of innovation, [its] fundamental objectives are as relevant today as when Congress passed it” (p. 2). He added that NEPA has stood the test of time and is a policy for future generations of Americans. Yet he did not wait very long to question the implementation of the program, noting that CEQ regulations that implement NEPA are only twenty pages long (see Nicholas Yost testimony below) and need to be “fine-tuned” for specific action, such as forest management and energy development (see Chapter 4). Connaughton noted considerable conflict among federal agencies over NEPA and the need to address timeliness, increase effectiveness, and reduce intergovernmental conflict.

In response, Congressman Tom Udall from New Mexico retorted (p. 15):

It now seems clear that my view of NEPA differs significantly from the views of those who have come before the Task Force to criticize the statute. Where they see delay, I see deliberation. Where they see postponed profits, I see public input. Where they see frivolous litigation, I see citizens requiring the government to live up to its responsibilities. And where they see a barrier to development, I see a shield that protects average Americans from the shortsightedness of a massive Federal bureaucracy.

Following Congressman's Udall's testimony, Congressman Nick Rahall of West Virginia added a less diplomatic statement of his own about the committee investigation (p. 17):

. . . the record developed by this Task Force is extensive, but it is not sufficient. To the extent that this Task Force was designed to provide a body of evidence for the need to amend NEPA, it has failed. Perhaps this is because this Task Force plowed very little new ground. Both the Clinton and current Bush Administration conducted comprehensive reviews of the law and made specific recommendations for improving implementation without amending the statute.

Or perhaps it is because the argument forth by industry witnesses – that federal agencies should act less deliberately and enable more rapid public lands profiteering – failed to resonate with an American public stung in the wallet by huge energy conglomerates, likely the greatest beneficiaries of NEPA changes that are now enjoying the largest profit in American history. Or perhaps it is because the credibility of this Task Force was repeatedly undercut by this Committee when it made sweeping changes to NEPA in the energy and budget reconciliation bills despite the fact that this Task Force had not completed its work.

Next to testify was Nicholas Yost, an attorney who was the general counsel for CEQ during President Carter's administration. Yost, in fact, took the lead in drafting the CEQ and NEPA regulations. After noting that NEPA has had only one amendment in twenty-five years, he provided his perspective (p. 20):

I strongly believe that NEPA and its basic message, look before you leap environmentally, served the American people immensely well. This statute has been environmental success story. It's been replicated in about half of our States, and it has served as a model for environmental impact assessment laws in more than 100 countries and may be the most imitated law in American history. Also I should point out that I have spent much of the last 20 years assisting clients through the NEPA process and have had my own share of frustration with unneeded delay in the process. The goal should be to cut the fat but not the muscle.

Yost argued that actions should not be exempted from NEPA, consideration of alternatives should not be reduced, the public should be kept in the process, and judicial review is essential. While offering constructive suggestions and criticisms, Yost provided historical context for the current hearing (p. 22):

I respectfully suggest that we keep in mind the original intent of the drafters. The Senate's lead author, Henry Jackson of Washington, characterized NEPA as “the most important and far-reaching environmental and conservation measure ever enacted.” The ranking Republican, Gordon Allott of Colorado, called it “truly landmark legislation.” The lead House author, Congressman John Dingell of Michigan, stressed that “we must consider the natural environment as a whole and assess its quality continuously if we wish to make strides in improving and preserving it.” President Nixon chose January 1, 1970, to sign NEPA into law as his first official act of the new decade.

Next to testify was Robert Dreher, Deputy Executive Director of the Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute. He echoed much of Ned Yost's testimony, and added some insights based on his empirical evaluation of NEPA. Dreher was Deputy General Counsel to the EPA and staff attorney to the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. He characterized the Task Force's record as “oddly limited” (pp. 39–40):

Unfortunately, the Task Force to date has focused on a narrow, and almost uniformly negative, set of concerns: complaints raised by representatives of businesses that use federal public lands and natural resources for economic benefit that compliance with the Act's procedures imposes burdens and delays on their activities. The Task Force has shown little apparent interest in how NEPA protects environmental values, in fulfillment of Congress's original goals for the Act. Perhaps for that reason, the Task Force appears not to have been particularly interested in the views of conservationists and recreationists who, not surprisingly, see the value of NEPA. . . . Moreover, the Task Force virtually ignored the people with the most hands on experience in implementing NEPA: federal officials responsible for complying with the Act. . . . My report, NEPA Under Siege, describes these assaults on the act, ranging from measures in the 2003 Healthy Forests Restoration Act that restrict analysis of alternatives and limit public participation in forest thinning projects to the rebuttable presumption established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that numerous oil and gas activities are categorically excluded from NEPA analysis. Cumulatively, these proposals threaten to kill the NEPA process with a thousand cuts.

Quoting liberally from the Congressional Record and former President Nixon, Dreher reiterated the mantra that NEPA does not force agencies to accept recommendations, but it does require the opportunity for presentation of options. Presenting empirical research (notably not seen elsewhere in these hearings), Dreher disputed the assertion that NEPA is a major cost element or a source of delay, and in fact he argued that other actions related to business and government are the major source of inefficiencies. With regard to NEPA-related law suits, he provided data to show that few law suits are filed and very few injunctions are granted by the courts; in other words, NEPA is not a major source of legal activity to block projects.

Yost and Dreher were followed by a number of witnesses with a business perspective. John Martin, an attorney for the Devon Energy Corporation, identified the issue of increasing magnitude of EIS requirements. Rather than the 150–300-page documents anticipated by the regulations, he reported documents that are many thousands of pages long, cost millions of dollars, and require two to three years to prepare. The environmental assessments he noted have grown from ten to fifteen pages to hundreds. Martin advocated a reduction in the number of alternatives that must be considered; public participation early in the process so that plans can be adjusted while it is relatively simple to do; and a statute of limitations of 180 days placed on challenges so that opponents cannot wait until the last minute to sabotage a project.

Nick Goldstein, a staff attorney for the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, argued that “in its current state, NEPA generates far more documents than decisions” (p. 48). By delaying road projects, he argues, we waste dollars, thwart local planning efforts to manage land use and reduce congestion, and allow more auto-related injuries and deaths.

The National Environmental Policy Act, A Study of its
Effectiveness after Twenty-Five Years (CEQ 1997a)

NEPA is described as the “foundation of modern American environmental protection” (p. 1) and later as an “eloquent and inspiring declaration” (p. iv). According to the study's authors, NEPA has “made agencies take a hard look at potential environmental consequences of their action, and . . . has brought the public into the agency decision-making process like no other statute, . . . and as a tool it has helped to ‘build community and to strengthen our democracy” (p. iii).

The criticisms are similar to those in the later 2005 document, but are toned down. Businesses asserted that NEPA produces documents to satisfy a requirement, not to improve decisions; that it costs too much; and that the regulations are at odds with other federal laws, causing confusion, delays and increasing costs, and leading to unnecessary law suits. Their pro-NEPA counterparts counter that agencies wait too long to consult; the public believes that its concerns are ignored and that cumulative effects are ignored by many EISs. Advocates noted that about 500 EISs are completed a year, compared with 50,000 environmental assessments. They assert that more EISs should be done, and that agencies are thwarting the intent of the law by relying so much on environmental assessments.

The most valuable element of the CEQ report is the group's reflection on five elements of the NEPA, as follows:

• Strategic planning – NEPA values should be integrated into agency planning while it is possible to modify plans.
• Public information and input – the public should be informed and heard.
• Inter-agency coordination – agencies should share information and plan jointly.
• Interdisciplinary place-based analysis and decision-making – information and values from place-based sources should be included.
• Science-based and flexible management – predictions should be monitored and evaluated.

My decades-old thesis, now revised

When I began learning about NEPA, I understood, or at least hoped, it to be a science-driven reform mechanism. The early literature up to about 1985 (especially Best 1972; Oregon State University 1973; Ortolano 1973; Warner 1973; Andrews 1976; Dreyfus and Ingram 1976; Liroff 1976; Canter 1977; Greenberg et al. 1978; Caldwell 1982; Wenner 1982; Taylor 1984) suggested that the EIS might work as such, in four possible ways.

• It would introduce a rational process into the federal agencies, especially emphasizing ecological effects that agency decisions insufficiently weighed.
• It would produce comprehensive systems analyses of the proposed action's ecological, human health, economic, and social impacts, and thus those of projects, and thereby move the government toward more thoughtful project decisions.
• It would inject young and enthusiastic federal employees, such as many of my former students, who would internally reform agency thinking about the importance of the environment.
• It would open up federal decisions to local publics and activist groups, and lead to a broadening of the factors considered by decision-makers. This would also take into account the social tensions that arouse in cities during the 1960s.

But by the mid-1980s, I had worked on and read EISs, spoken with experienced EIS practitioners, and become more informed by reality than by my values. While not entirely ready to abandon the science-driven, rational model of decision-making, my none-too-surprising conclusion is that agencies make decisions through leaders with little time to leave their mark. To them, an EIS that supports the agency's position will be acceptable. One that requires minor changes will be tolerable – indeed, an EIS that leads to tweaking the preferred option is good, because it shows that the agency is listening to in-house analysts and outside audiences. But comments that strenuously critique the agency's goals are ignored, if possible. The federal courts might rule that an EIS contains mistakes that require correction, but there have been few such procedural mistakes recently. In a few cases, an EIS could change an agency's mind if it found serious consequences supported by irrefutable evidence. But most of the time, by the mid-1980s I expected that short-term, mission-based decision-making would continue to dominate.

I also expected to find wide variations in agencies’ development and use of the EIS because of their markedly different missions. Hence I expected to find more informal process and open negotiations around a mass transit project or a monument preservation project, because the projects are desired by most residents. By contrast, the siting and operations of a liquefied natural gas or a nuclear power plant, usually opposed by nearby residents, would lead to a more formal, less open process.

I also expected that the EIS, whether the agency loves it or hates it, is often its de facto planning process. Many American leaders and ordinary citizens do not like planning (Popper 1993) because it prevents bold actions, has little public support, and often degenerates into legalistic paper chases. The EIS planning process not only requires agencies to follow a sequence of predetermined steps, but also forces them to consider issues that they otherwise would have ignored or preferred to avoid. My overall expectation prior to doing the case studies was that the federal EIS has become an environmental chameleon that fits each agency's needs to manage its environmental power and its internal planning processes (see Chapter 8 for further discussion).

Evaluation questions

Given my revised thesis about the EIS, I developed a set of specific questions for the evaluation. These were derived from three sources. One was the intent of the creators of the law, as summarized above. Second, I reflected on the critiques of NEPA, some of which are also summarized above. Third, I constructed the questions so that they incorporated a set of six policy-evaluation criteria that I developed and have used in environmental health policy analysis for many years (Greenberg 2008). My experience has shown that environmental policies that fail to respond adequately to the following six factors have a very high probability of failing. These six criteria are:

• the likely reaction of elected government officials and their staff
• likely reactions from the public and special interests, including not-for-profit organizations, business, and the media
• human and ecological health impacts
• short- and long-term economic costs and benefits
• the moral imperative
• flexibility and time pressure.

It follows, then, that NEPA should allow for explicit consideration of advantages and disadvantages of proposed actions from these six perspectives. For example, as I am writing this chapter, there is considerable debate about the desirability of closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay and moving the detainees elsewhere. Assume that the United States was going to build another high-security prison for the special detainees (some already exist that could host many of them). An EIS for such a facility would need strong support from the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice. Presumably the EPA and the Department of the Interior would also have input, depending on the location. States and local areas selected as possible locations should have an opportunity to provide input during the EIS process. Special interests, both public and private, as well as media, should be included during the scoping and draft EIS phases. Depending on the location, ecological issues, cultural artifacts, and human health could be major considerations. The cost of designing, building, and operating the facility for an indeterminate length of time would need to be estimated and be part of the EIS. With regard to flexibility and time pressure, important considerations would include the consequences of not opening the facility in the immediate future. In other words, what options are available in the immediate future that would allow the decision to be deferred or more consideration given to it during the next five years? Ethics and morality might not be explicitly labeled as such in an EIS, but surely the international implications of Guantánamo and local implications of hosting such a prison would be considered. If any of these six criteria were missing from an EIS process, the proposed action would be likely to have serious problems.

I began with the idea of using a fourth source for key questions – a comparison of the US NEPA with its foreign and US state and local progeny. NEPA is lauded, by even its critics, because over 100 countries and over twenty-five US states have some NEPA-like process. But emulating does not mean copying. I examined the EIA processes of China, India, Mexico, and Canada, as well as those of California, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Minnesota, and the cities of San Francisco and New York. The more I tried to draw lessons learned from these, the more I realized that I was comparing apples and oranges. There are good reasons why other countries, states, and local governments might have a different EIA process from that of the United States as a whole.

China requires every EIS practitioner to be licensed, which I personally think is a good idea. Yet China's government has been much more centralized than that of the United States, so that difference is not surprising. I like the fact that San Francisco used its EIS processes to manage housing and other land uses and to prevent environmental injustice. Yet, while the United States does have the Department of Housing and Urban Development, that department has been substantially weakened and almost dissolved. Management of housing typically has been left to states, especially local governments, in the United States. I also like the European Union's requirement for private as well as public project EIAs. However, some US states and local governments also require private developers to do EIAs, and EU nations differ in the extent to which this is required and enforced. Furthermore, the literature shows that each of these nations, states, and local governments has EIA management problems that derive from these “improvements” (Ruddy and Hilty 2008). Overall, after pondering international, state, and local issues, I decided that it would be foolish to try to include these perspectives in this book because I cannot possibly do justice to them here.

I believe it is presumptuous to say that the framers of NEPA should have included in the legislation or regulation “modern” concepts such as strategic environmental assessment, life cycle analysis, and life cycle cost analyses, although I understand and have used these concepts. NEPA was crafted to assess environmental, public health, economic, social, and cumulative effects of each proposed action. A programmatic EIS is a reasonable extension that can address cumulative impacts and could be expected in some of the older EISs. The more recent ways of looking at the environment and other differences between the NEPA and its progeny are worth exploring, but are too much of a leap of faith for purposes of what is largely a retrospective analysis of forty years of experience in the United States (Partidario 2000; Therival 2004; Chaker et al. 2006; Fischer 2007). A number of these options are discussed briefly in Chapter 8.

With these three sources acknowledged, I focused on five multi-part questions for each case study in this book.

• Does the EIS report offer an adequate and objective analysis of the information? This implies an evaluation of the quality and quantity of the data, the analysis of the results, and the presentation, including its tone.
• Does the EIS include integrated environmental, economic, and social considerations? This means a review to determine if the authors were comprehensive and emphasized key factors and cumulative effects, if any.
• Is there evidence in the document of meaningful coordination with other federal, state, and local agencies? This necessitates a review of comments and actions by other government agencies.
• Was the process accessible to nongovernmental organizations, citizens, and the media in ways that gave them an opportunity to provide meaningful input? As above, this requires an evaluation of meaningful access to the process.
• What would have happened to this project if there had not been an EIS process?

Organization of the book

The book is divided into eight chapters. Each of the case study chapters (2–7) follows the same format, beginning with an introduction that places the case study in its geographic and temporal context. The second part of each case study discusses the proposed action(s) and the final decision. Then the history of the proposal, its design, conflict, and resolution are reviewed. The penultimate part of each chapter is an interview with one or more experts. The final section of Chapters 2–7 is my evaluation of the EIS, and in one case the EIA, process. The choice of case studies evolved over the course of about four years and included discussions with colleagues who had many suggestions. Ultimately, I chose to feature a diversity of agencies, including examples from every major region, cities and rural locations, some early 1970s and some newer EISs, and notably a final EIS, draft EIS, and EIA, and a scoping exercise for an EIS. Applying these criteria led me to about two dozen choices, and then I fell back to choosing from cases that I felt were within my scientific understanding and for which I could identify experts who were willing to speak with me.

This chapter has described the history of the EIS in the United States and reviewed the five questions asked about every EIS in this book. Chapter 2 looks at the issues of transportation, sprawl, and urban revitalization in New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the United States, using two EISs – one about a major highway project that was defeated; the second about a light rail system that is partly completed. Chapter 3 illustrates how an EIS may be used to preserve cultural/historical treasures (Ellis Island in the New York Bay). Chapter 4 is about how EISs are done when hazardous substances are involved, in this case a proposed liquefied natural gas facility and distribution system (near Baltimore, Maryland). The fifth chapter uses an older EIS to examine the destruction of a small portion of the US chemical warfare agent stockpile (Johnston Island, Pacific Ocean). Chapter 6 is about the challenging task of managing high-level nuclear waste at one of the former US nuclear weapons facilities (Aiken, South Carolina). Chapter 7 is an environmental assessment about what might be the last major dam project in the United States, Lake Nighthorse, near Durango, Colorado.

These six case chapters vary in length in response to the scope of the project being studied. A limited number of maps, pictures, and tables are provided for context. The smallest of these EISs was about 250 pages, and the largest was thousands of pages long. While I list all the major topics considered in the EIS, I deliberately chose key elements to emphasize in the text, those that are most important based on my personal knowledge and public comments. Also, I think it is essential that readers see for themselves that EISs are written in markedly different styles, that have different tonal qualities when read, which depend upon the mission and culture of the organization preparing the EIS. This will become apparent as the reader finishes reading Chapter 3 (Ellis Island) and begins reading Chapter 4 (Sparrows Point liquefied natural gas). Chapter 8 concludes the book with my summary judgments about the five questions asked of each case study, and my views on how the EIS/EIA process can be modified to improve its utility.