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The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969: Summary

Background

Enactment: January 1, 1970

Related legislation: Endangered Species Act (1973); Environmental Quality Improvement Act (1970)

Revisions: Amended 1975, 1982

Implementation and enforcement: Council on Environmental Quality (Executive Office of the President) oversees implementation

Intent

The underlying intent of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is to require federal agencies to incorporate environmental considerations into project development and decision-making processes. Its application is not limited to formal planning but covers a variety of federal activities from small-scale public resource allocations to major land use planning to federal legislation. Even more importantly, NEPA requires federal agencies to put this decision-making process into writing and makes it open to public and judicial review at several levels.

NEPA itself barely comprises 10 pages, largely because the details of its implementation are set out separately, in the Code of Federal Regulations and in the regulations set forth by individual agencies. The statute itself consists of three main parts. The first, section 101, outlines the intent of the act by setting goals for the environmental health of the nation and establishing the role of the federal government in assuring "for all Americans safe, healthful, productive, and aesthetically and culturally pleasing surroundings," (§ 4331(b)). Section 102 forms the core of the act, stating in part that every federal agency must examine the environmental impacts of its decisions and include environmental considerations in the decision-making process. Furthermore, it must do so in a formal, systematic, and interdisciplinary manner (§ 4332). The third key point of NEPA, found in section 202, is to establish the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) (§ 4342). The CEQ was established to provide the federal agencies with guidance in implementing NEPA, and it developed a set of guidelines for that process that are widely used by agencies and courts and play a substantial role in its interpretation and implementation (CEQ – Regulations for Implementing NEPA).

The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that NEPA is a strictly procedural statute, meaning that although it forces agencies to formally consider the environmental impacts of their actions, it does not in any way dictate the final decision on the action. An agency could legally take the most environmentally destructive course of action of all its alternatives, provided that it appropriately considered the impacts and alternatives and set forth its reasoning as required by NEPA regulations (see Strycker's Bay Neighborhood Council, Inc. vs. Karlen).

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