When I arrived at DePaul University as an assistant professor in the Environmental Science Program in 1992, I was asked to teach our senior capstone course: “Environmental Impact Analysis.” The capstone gives our students an overview of environmental law and policy, but with particular focus on the history and evolution of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Students read the NEPA statute in its entirety, as well as several types of environmental documents, including environmental assessments (EAs), environmental impact statements (EISs), records of decision (RODs), and findings of no significant impact (FONSIs). They learned about the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process and the steps for preparing these environmental documents. So what did I know about NEPA and EISs? Absolutely nothing. But I was undeterred by this challenge, and so I dived right into learning all that I could about NEPA. Years later I came across a wonderful text: The NEPA Book: A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (Solano Press, 2001), by Ronald Bass, Albert Herson, and Kenneth Bogdan. This became the required text for the course. Ironically, at that time I did not make the connection between the authors' affiliation with the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP) and their prolific scholarship on NEPA! (Sorry guys!)

On a sunny Tuesday morning in September 1983, I literally walked out of a cattle barn where I had been doing morning chores on my father's centennial farm in central Illinois, walked back to the farmhouse, dressed in a suit, then drove 25 miles to the Central Office of the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) in Springfield, the State's capitol, to interview for a position on a new Special Studies team. This team's mission was to focus exclusively on engineering and environmental studies to support the preparation of environmental impact statements under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The United States courts are increasingly requiring federal decision-makers to assess greenhouse gas emissions of proposed actions in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analyses. With respect to NEPA, the cumulative effect of a proposal must be assessed in reaching a determination regarding the significance of its environmental impact. Analysis of cumulative impacts is one of NEPA's most challenging requirements. The problem of assessing cumulative greenhouse gas emission (GHG) impacts under NEPA is one of the thorniest in American environmental law and poses perhaps the most significant challenge to NEPA's regulatory framework in decades. A strict regulatory interpretation of “significance” can also lead to a paradox (Eccleston's Cumulative Impact Paradox), when one considers how the environment appeared before the intervention of human activities. A Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), by its very definition, states that an action will not have a significant effect, including a cumulatively significant effect. Because the global GHG concentration is generally considered to have already breached a cumulatively significant level (i.e., cumulatively significant impact), the assessment of proposals that emit even innocuous levels of GHGs can become a paradoxical effort. Specifically, a logical paradox arises in which many, if not most, federal activities should require preparation of an environmental impact statement (EIS) because they are technically ineligible for a FONSI. A strict interpretation of “significance” leads to such a conclusion, even in cases where the direct and indirect impacts of a relatively ‘small’ proposed activity may be finite but essentially innocuous. As described in this article, NEPA practitioners and decision-makers are beginning to appreciate the implications of this Cumulative Impact Paradox. This paradox must be resolved, if the analysis of cumulative GHG emissions is to contribute in a meaningful way to federal decision making.

Environmental Practice 12:105–115 (2010)

The USDA Forest Service is sued more often than any other federal agency under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). This analysis examines Forest Service land management cases initiated from 1989 to 2008 to understand how the agency fared in NEPA cases. Of the 1,064 completed cases, 671 (63.1%) involved a NEPA challenge. The agency won the final outcome of 343 cases (51.1%), lost 176 (26.2%), and settled 152 (22.7%). Case characteristic analyses indicate that case decisions peaked at the end of the 1990s, occurred mostly in the Ninth Circuit, and predominately involved vegetative management, forest planning, roads, recreation, and wildlife management activities. In addition to these general case outcomes, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the 411 cases where a judge or panel of judges specifically ruled on a NEPA challenge. The agency won the NEPA claim in 69.3% of these cases. The Forest Service was most successful litigating supplemental environmental impact statement cases and least successful in categorical exclusion cases. Most challenges to Forest Service NEPA implementation were based on environmental assessments (EAs) and environmental impact statements (EISs). The agency was more likely to win a direct and indirect effects EA challenge and a range of alternatives EIS challenge. Since the Forest Service accounts for a large portion of all NEPA litigation, this research enhances understanding of legal challenges to NEPA's implementation.

Environmental Practice 12:116–126 (2010)

When the National Environmental Policy Act was passed in 1969, it presupposed that there were clear ways to identify and then address environmental impacts from federal actions. Since then, it has become evident that environmental issues are grounded in complex systems, which are often difficult to “see” in traditional venues for gathering public input and informing decision makers. To address this, practitioners have been exploring collaborative modeling using system dynamics as a method for promoting systems thinking in a variety of decision venues. Historically applied in the business world, system dynamics has expanded into other arenas, including natural resource management. Cooperative modeling combines principles of collaboration with system dynamics to link relevant physical and social systems. In this approach, a multidisciplinary team convenes to engage in dialogue, to identify key variables for a particular issue, to identify relevant data, and to construct a systems-based computer model that helps team members “see” the complexity inherent in the system. Results from these experiences suggest that participants develop a deeper level of understanding about the policy issue, increase their agreement about root problems, and generate sound information about the issue being addressed. This article suggests that cooperative modeling can be an effective tool to meet both the letter and the spirit of the National Environmental Policy Act.

Environmental Practice 12:127–133 (2010)

Federally funded projects must comply with a suite of environmental federal regulations, including the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and the US Department of Transportation Act of 1966, which are addressed through the National Environmental Policy Act process. In this case study, we describe a Federal Highway Administration sidewalk improvement project implemented by the Georgia Department of Transportation in DeKalb County, Georgia, that used an innovative streamlined process under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 to evaluate and assess effects on historic resources and to comply with National Environmental Policy Act process. This project also represents a novel use of this Streamlined Section 106 Process, since it was used in a new sidewalk construction project that required right-of-way acquisition and easements as compared to previous projects where this streamlined process was used only in cases with existing sidewalks and no right-of-way acquisition. Additionally, we demonstrate how coordination under the National Environmental Policy Act addressed impacts on historic resources and resulted in the successful preservation of cultural resource features.

Environmental Practice 12:134–143 (2010)

The courts are increasingly finding that National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documents need to address climate change impacts—both the impact of the project on climate change and the impacts of climate change on the project. In the scientific arena, the year 2007 was pivotal in climate change because the Fourth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was issued. The IPCC report concluded that warming of the climate system is unequivocal and that this warming is primarily caused by increases in greenhouse gas concentrations. To address the issue and its impacts on a given project, policy, or program for a NEPA review, the analyst is presented with the difficulty of summarizing a massive amount of literature from the earth, biological, and physical sciences. This article provides a summary of the recent literature, addressing the IPCC report, the evidence for climate change, effects in different regions, NEPA implications, and mitigation strategies. NEPA reviews in the area of infrastructure in coastal regions and in the area of water supply will need special attention in light of climate change. All of this will make for much decision making under uncertainty, but ultimately NEPA documents and environmental decisions are likely to benefit from consideration of climate change because more resilient projects are likely to be approved, even if climate change is not as intense as some estimates. This article emphasizes NEPA-relevant events and is not intended to provide details on the current regulatory framework under other laws.

Environmental Practice 12:144–157 (2010)

A movement is needed for federal, state, and local agencies to integrate watershed planning into their daily transportation planning activities. The integration will provide a method for collecting, sharing, and analyzing watershed data (science) and provide a framework outlining appropriate strategies (policy) to more effectively balance transportation projects and enhance the environment.

Environmental Practice 12:158–167 (2010)

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations stipulate that when an agency opts to have a private contractor prepare an environmental impact statement, contractor selection should be conducted in such a way as to avoid conflicts of interest (COIs) that might adversely affect the integrity of the NEPA process. The goal is to ensure an unbiased, credible, and defensible environmental impact statement that supports public and transparent decision making. The contractor is responsible for executing a COI disclosure statement prepared by the agency, stating that the contractor has “no financial or other interest” in the outcome of the project. Because determining freedom from COIs after the fact may be difficult, private NEPA contractors should proactively collect information that supports a broad COI analysis of all aspects of their business models, taking into consideration requirements from other regulations that may govern a specific contractor/agency relationship.

Environmental Practice 12:168–174 (2010)

Under Section 1609 of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (hereafter referred to as the Recovery Act) federal agencies are required to devote adequate resources to ensuring that applicable environmental reviews carried out under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) are completed expeditiously by using the shortest existing, applicable process allowed by the law. With this requirement, Congress expressed the clear intent that agencies must still comply with NEPA, but that they should do so in a streamlined fashion within NEPA's existing legal framework. Section 1609 also requires the president to submit quarterly reports to Congress [specifically, the United States (US) Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and the US House of Representative Committee on Natural Resources] on the NEPA compliance status of projects and activities funded by the Recovery Act. The president has delegated this responsibility to the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Remarkably, this is the first time in NEPA's 40-year history that federal agencies are required to account for their progress systematically in complying with NEPA. As of this writing, the CEQ had transmitted four such reports to Congress on May 18, August 3, and November 2, 2009, and January 1, 2010. These reports are based on detailed filings that each federal agency made to the CEQ. This article summarizes and assesses the first year of NEPA compliance for Recovery Act funding. It reveals the number of each type of NEPA document that federal agencies have prepared, highlights examples of what federal agencies are doing to streamline NEPA compliance, and discusses how the Recovery Act reporting may have wider influences on NEPA practices in general.

Have you ever puzzled over a section of the Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ's) regulations, wondering whether you are the only one who does not understand it, or cannot understand how it could be followed exactly as it is written? You are not alone.

This article is part 2 of a two-part series. Part one, which was published in the June 2008 edition of Environmental Practice,1 focused on the context for considering climate change in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analyses and reviewing the case law and other legal developments on the topic. The article briefly explained the phenomenon of climate change and the key climate change science findings and predictions from the most credible global and United States (US) sources. The article also briefly described some important state and local climate change policy initiatives, and provided an overview of the state of NEPA climate change case law.

Most of us became aware of meth labs several years ago when local and regional law enforcement personnel began to compare notes and realized we had an epidemic in most of the United States (US). Meth labs can be found in many types of properties ranging from single-family homes to parks or automobiles. Like the fumes and chemicals that are emitted from meth labs, the impacts associated with them also permeate and contaminate a broad area. This includes home owners, neighbors, landlords, mortgage companies, law enforcement personnel, and many others. These meth labs have many negative impacts on our communities, including health impacts to the meth cooks, residents, and neighbors; social impacts on children and other family members; and impacts on government, including children and family services, law enforcement, prisons, and health care providers. “In 2004, 8,000 meth labs were seized in the US, and child welfare workers removed more than 3,000 children from the labs.”1