National Environmental Policy Act

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a United States environmental law that promotes the enhancement of the environment and established the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The law was enacted on January 1, 1970. To date, more than 100 nations around the world have enacted national environmental policies modeled after NEPA.'No agency possesses discretion whether to comply with procedural requirements such as NEPA. The relevant information provided by a NEPA analysis needs to be available to the public and the people who play a role in the decision-making process. This process includes the President.' 'And Congress has not delegated to the President the decision as to the route of any pipeline.'To declare 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.In determining whether to prepare an environmental impact statement the Federal agency shall:The Ninth Circuit has read these regulations to mean that 'the public must be given an opportunity to comment on draft EAs and EISs.' Anderson v. Evans, 371 F.3d 475, 487 (9th Cir.2004). Because the regulations 'must mean something,' the Circuit has held that an agency's failure to obtain any public input on a draft EA 'violates these regulations.' Citizens for Better Forestry v. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, 341 F.3d 961, 970 (9th Cir.2003).A person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute, is entitled to judicial review thereof.Simply stated, a case is moot when the issues presented are no longer 'live' or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome. See E. Borchard, Declaratory 497*497 Judgments 35-37 (2d ed. 1941). Where one of the several issues presented becomes moot, the remaining live issues supply the constitutional requirement of a case or controversy. See United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 86-94 (1947); 6A J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 57.13 (2d ed. 1966).The building of the towers has not made the case hypothetical or abstract — the towers still cross the fields of the Landowners, continually obstructing their irrigation systems — and this Court has the power to decide if they may stay or if they may have to be removed. * * * If the fact that the towers are built and operating were enough to make the case nonjusticiable, as the dissent states, then the BPA (and all similar entities) could merely ignore the requirements of NEPA, build its structures before a case gets to court, and then hide behind the mootness doctrine. Such a result is not acceptable.He did not seek remediation; he wanted the interchange stopped. It was built. Therefore, there is no justiciable controversy pertaining to Phase I.Thus, when a decision to which NEPA obligations attach is made without the informed environmental consideration that NEPA requires, the harm that NEPA intends to prevent has been suffered. * * * the harm at stake is a harm to the environment, but the harm consists of the added risk to the environment that takes place when governmental decisionmakers make up their minds without having before them an analysis (with prior public comment) of the likely effects of their decision upon the environment.The way that harm arises may well have to do with the psychology of decisionmakers, and perhaps a more deeply rooted human psychological instinct not to tear down projects once they are built. But the risk implied by a violation of NEPA is that real environmental harm will occur through inadequate foresight and deliberation. The difficulty of stopping a bureaucratic steam roller, once started, still seems to us, after reading Village of Gambell, a perfectly proper factor for a district court to take into account in assessing that risk, on a motion for a preliminary injunction.Over the years, our cases have established that the irreducible constitutional minimum of standing contains three elements. First, the plaintiff must have suffered an 'injury in fact'—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, see id., at 756; Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 508 (1975); Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 740-741, n. 16 (1972); and (b) 'actual or imminent, not `conjectural' or `hypothetical,' ' Whitmore, supra, at 155 (quoting Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U. S. 95, 102 (1983)). Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of—the injury has to be 'fairly ... trace to the challenged action of the defendant, and not ... th result the independent action of some third party not before the court.' Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare 561*561 Rights Organization, 426 U. S. 26, 41-42 (1976). Third, it must be 'likely,' as opposed to merely 'speculative,' that the injury will be 'redressed by a favorable decision.' Id., at 38, 43.Standing alone, 'the fact that a harm is widely shared does not necessarily render it a generalized grievance.' Jewel, 673 F.3d at 909; see also Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497, 517 (2007) ('t does not matter how many persons have been injured by the challenged action' so long as 'the party bringing suit shows that the action injures him in a concrete and personal way.' (quotation marks omitted and alterations normalized)); Akins, 524 U.S. at 24 ('n injury . ... widely shared ... does not, by itself, automatically disqualify an interest for Article III purposes.Environmental injury, by its nature, can seldom be adequately remedied by money damages and is often permanent or at least of long duration, i. e., irreparable. If such injury is sufficiently likely, therefore, the balance of harms will usually favor the issuance of an injunction to protect the environment.We must next balance the irreparable harms we have identified against the harm to defendants if the preliminary injunction is granted. Defendants allege that significant financial penalties will be incurred by UDOT if the Project is delayed. * * * However, it appears that many of these costs may be self-inflicted. As we have previously concluded, the state entities involved in this case have 'jumped the gun' on the environmental issues by entering into contractual obligations that anticipated a pro forma result. In this sense, the state defendants are largely responsible for their own harm.CEQ's Advance Notice states that regulatory changes are being considered to 'ensure a more efficient, timely, and effective NEPA process.' As detailed below, this justification ignores the reality that NEPA's existing regulations already allow for significant efficiency and timeliness. For example, existing NEPA regulations direct federal agencies to reduce paperwork,1 reduce delay,2 provide for tailored time limits,3 provide for scoping that identifies the issues requiring detailed analysis early in the process,4 integrate and prepare NEPA reviews concurrently with other required reviews,5 and eliminate duplication with state and local procedures.6 CEQ should focus its efforts on better enforcement of existing regulations, improving training for agency staff and NEPA practitioners who are unaware of available tools, and expediting procedures in existing NEPA regulations. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a United States environmental law that promotes the enhancement of the environment and established the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The law was enacted on January 1, 1970. To date, more than 100 nations around the world have enacted national environmental policies modeled after NEPA. Prior to NEPA, Federal agencies were mission oriented. An example of mission orientation was to select highway routes as the shortest route between two points. NEPA was necessary to require Federal agencies to evaluate the environmental effects of their actions.:2–3 NEPA's most significant outcome was the requirement that all executive Federal agencies prepare environmental assessments (EAs) and environmental impact statements (EISs). These reports state the potential environmental effects of proposed Federal agency actions. Further the U.S. Congress recognizes that each person has a responsibility to preserve and enhance the environment as trustees for succeeding generations. NEPA's procedural requirements do not apply to the President, Congress, or the Federal courts since they are not a 'Federal agency' by definition. However, a Federal agency taking action under authority ordered by the President may be a final agency action subject to NEPA's procedural requirements.:117–118 A U.S. District Court describes the need for even the President to have the NEPA analysis information before making a decision as follows: NEPA grew out of the increased public appreciation and concern for the environment that developed during the 1960s, amid increased industrialization, urban and suburban growth, and pollution across the United States. During this time, environmental interest group efforts and the growing public awareness resulting from Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring led to support for the 1964 Wilderness Act and subsequent legislation (including the 1970 Clean Air Act and 1972 Clean Water Act). The public outrage in reaction to the Santa Barbara oil spill in early 1969 occurred just as the NEPA legislation was being drafted in Congress. The Cuyahoga River fire occurred just before the unanimous vote in the Senate. Another major driver for enacting NEPA were the 1960s highway revolts, a series of protests in many American cities that occurred in response to the bulldozing of many communities and ecosystems during the construction of the Interstate Highway System. A United States District Court provides a documented concise background of NEPA being created to protect the environment from actions involving the Federal government as follows: Following nearly a century of rapid economic expansion, population growth, industrialization, and urbanization, it had become clear by the late 1960s that American progress had an environmental cost. See 42 U.S.C. § 4331(a); 115 Cong. Rec. 26,571 (1969) (remarks of Rep. John Dingell). A congressional investigation into the matter yielded myriad evidence indicating a gross mismanagement of the country's environment and resources, most notably at the hands of the federal government. S. Rep. No. 296, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. 8 (1969); Thomas O. McGarity, The Courts, the Agencies, and NEPA Threshold Issues, 55 Tex. L. Rev. 801, 805 (1977) (noting 'a remarkable consensus of opinion' that the federal agencies contributed substantially to the country's degraded environmental state). As a result, lawmakers and the general public alike called for an urgent and sweeping policy of environmental protection.Congress answered these calls by enacting the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321–4370h, which has now served for forty-five years as 'our basic national charter for protection of the environment.' 40 C.F.R. § 1500.1(a). With NEPA, Congress mandated that federal agencies take a 'hard look' at the environmental consequences of their actions and to engage all practicable measures to prevent environmental harm when engaging in agency action. Kleppe v. Sierra Club, 427 U.S. 390, 409, 410 n.21 (1976) (citing 42 U.S.C. § 4331(b)). Furthermore, to remedy the widespread mistrust of the federal agencies, Congress incorporated within NEPA 'action-forcing' provisions which require agencies to follow specific procedures in order to accomplish any federal project. Id. at 409 & n.18.