Four-Year Score on the Environment

...In its annual report to the President on the state of the environment, the Council noted an overall trend towards preparation of fewer statements, but attributed it largely to a decrease in statements from the Department of Transportation...

...In 1972, the General Accounting Office issued a report on the quality of a number of statements prepared by several Federal agencies...

...The GAO concluded that the usefulness of the statements was impaired by several failings: inadequate consideration of identified environmental impacts, inadequate treatment of agencies' comments on environmental effects, and inadequate consideration of alternatives and their impact on the environment...

...The court agreed...

...These concerns and reservations were seconded recently by James Sullivan of the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI...

...Sometimes, however, impact statements simply are not prepared on projects for which they are required...

...The vote on the bill clearly reflected the political impact of the feared intensification of the energy shortage caused by the Arab oil boycott...

...Moreover, because EPA rates impact statements rather than the proposed projects, often the Council on Environmental Quality receives an extremely good impact statement on a bad project...

...An entirely new area under NEPA has been opened up to judicial review by the so-called Gilham Dam case...

...Previously, the courts had held that a person seeking review of an agency action which might be detrimental to the environment must be able to show that he, or members of the group he represents, would be injured by the challenged action...

...The Corps argued that there were no judicially enforceable rights under the first part of the Act, that NEPA, in effect, was merely a procedural Act...

...SCRAP, on the other hand, argued that the rate increase would inhibit use of recyclable goods, and thus cause more litter and other adverse environmental effects in parks in the Washington area...

...By passing the bill, Congress for the first time barred further judicial review under NEPA of a major project's environmental effect...

...The Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for commenting on the substantive quality of impact statements...

...According to EPA staffers, some firms attempt to minimize adverse environmental effects and slant the report in their clients' favor...

...Once again, the court supported the broadest and earliest compliance with NEPA requirements...

...Perhaps most important of all, the pipeline is not seen by many environmentalists as a legislative precedent, but rather as a special case...

...Although most of the judicial developments have clarified procedural issues (such as whether impact statements had to be filed on projects already underway), several major court decisions have resolved important questions about the Federal agencies' responsibilities to comply with NEPA's substantive requirements...

...Supreme Court, they won a substantial victory for NEPA by broadening the citizen's right to sue...

...Basically, the National Environmental Protection Act depends heavily on public interest and participation...

...Thus NEPA, which is celebrating its fourth birthday this month, attempts to integrate environmental considerations into the Federal decision-making process...

...The ICC argued that SCRAP did not have standing to sue...

...Environmentalists disagree about future prospects of their movement, but most of them agree that Congressional approval of the Trans-Alaska pipeline bill was a serious setback...

...A second major case during the past year, which has served to strengthen the Act, concerned government research and development programs...

...Donley of CEQ complains that some agencies do not do the work themselves on impact statements, but farm out the job to some of the hundreds of self-styled environmental engineering companies, which receive from $500 up to $9 million (for the Trans-Alaska pipeline) to draw up statements for their agency clients...

...NEPA requires their full consideration in agency decision-making...

...Yet even some of the most ardent environmentalists concede that despite several setbacks caused by soaring prices, a sagging economy, and, most recently, the "energy crisis," the National Environmental Policy Act—the broadest and most important environmental measure—has held up well, surviving a veritable blitz of Administration-backed, legislative, and court challenges...

...Though most court cases have been brought under NEPA's second section, which is concerned with the filing and adequacy of agency-filed impact statements, the first section of the Act contains a general statement of the "critical importance of restoring and maintaining environmental quality to the overall welfare and development of man," and instructs the Federal Government to take action and follow policies to assure all Americans "safe, healthful, productive, and esthetically and culturally pleasing surroundings...

...I am responsible for reviewing all of their statements...

...ing agency impact statements, and by the Environmental Protection Agency...

...Not all of the bills, of course, are hostile to NEPA...

...Billings called the pressures on the clean air and water measures "fantastic" and said they were likely to increase in the future...

...Last year, DOT and Corps of Engineers projects accounted for seventy-one per cent of all impact statements...

...Yet the pipeline fight was not a total loss for environmentalists...

...The National Environmental Policy Act, known as NEPA, is the cornerstone of environmental legislation, a measure which gave legislative teeth to the environmental movement by requiring that Federal agencies file environmental impact statements projecting the effect on the quality of the environment of all significant Federal proposals...

...In Scientists' Institute for Public Information v. Atomic Energy Commission, the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, in June 1973, ruled that the AEC must file an environmental impact statement on its liquid metal fast breeder nuclear reactor program...

...Rather ironically, the EPA was recently criticized by Representative John Dingell, Michigan Democrat and a chief NEPA author, for failing to conduct the impact studies required by law on billions of dollars in grants the Agency has awarded for construction of sewage treatment facilities...

...He added that the passage of all existing environmental legislation has been extremely difficult: "The votes on those measures don't reflect the amount of closed-door negotiation that took place—a year for the Clean Air Act, and nearly two years for the water bill...

...This process," says Donley, "has forced environmental considerations to be cranked into the system...

...Some are in direct response to court decisions...

...According to CSPI's review, eighty-six per cent of the statements did not discuss mass transit alternatives, eighteen per cent did not consider noise pollution, and none gave data on increases in local air pollution levels which a proposed road would create...

...The Council notes that the decrease in DOT statements is mainly attributable to better screening of insignificant actions by both the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration...

...If the energy crisis means gas rationing, a decrease in private auto commuter traffic, and a switch of emphasis and attention to mass transit, we shall see an immediate improvement in air quality," said Billings...

...The report found that more than 100 bills, either directly or indirectly applying to NEPA, were introduced during the Ninety-second Congress...

...Nevertheless, serious problems continue to plague the impact statement process...

...Many of these firms, of course, are honest and attempt to analyze projected environmental impacts objectively, but many do not...

...Every day, we heard of new legislation which would restrict NEPA's authority," said Anderson, "but of the more than 100 bills which would have modified the Act, only one was passed by Congress, one which streamlined NEPA procedures...

...Impact statement consideration is further hampered by the limited CEQ staff...

...In any event, the Council does not have legal authority to stop an agency project...

...Since the Act was passed, more than 400 lawsuits have been filed under it in the Federal courts...

...Despite the successes NEPA has made possible, the Act and its impact statements have been far from a cure-all," said Sullivan in a recent issue of Environmental Action...

...there's no going back on that now...

...The strengthening of NEPA, the strip mining bill, mounting pressures for a cohesive national land use policy and for legislation on noise abatement and other forms of environmental damage all attest to the continued strength of the environmental movement...

...Believe me, those measures weren't cakewalks...

...The plaintiffs (three environmental groups) took the case back to court, arguing that the decision to build the dam was a serious mistake, citing the first section of NEPA in its argument...

...According to an analysis of proposed legislative modifications of NEPA prepared by the Environmental Policy Division of the Library of Congress, NEPA is particularly vulnerable to erosion through exclusions included in legislation dealing with a variety of subjects, because it pervades nearly every aspect of Federal activities...

...Diane Donley, a Council staff member, claims that the impact statement process, in and of itself, has forced Federal agencies to take environmental factors into consideration from a proposed project's inception, and thus has increased agency awareness of environmental concerns...

...it ruled that "NEPA requires more than full disclosure of environmental consequences and project alternatives...

...The nation's highest court accepted its first NEPA case in 1973: SCRAP v. United States, which involved a challenge to an action of the Interstate Commerce Commission...

...There are thousands of highway projects every year," said Donley...

...Other bills would toughen and streamline the Act and are supported by the directors of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which is responsible for monitoring the state of the environment and evaluatJudith Miller is The Progressive's Washington correspondent...

...Although the five men lost their fight over the increase in the U.S...

...The second draft indicated that there would be serious adverse environmental effects if the dam were constructed...

...Given these limitations, the Council will take no action on a statement or project unless EPA or other reviewing agencies find the impact statement unsatisfactory...

...Because under the Act the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) lacks the authority to stop agency projects, the court decision gives citizens, for the first time, the possibility of project evaluation through judicial review...

...Of the three branches of Government, the judiciary has given environmentalism and NEPA the strongest support...

...Five George Washington University law students, describing themselves as Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures (SCRAP), challenged an ICC-approved increase in railroad freight rates and claimed that the increase would discourage movement of recyclable goods...

...It must rely on the weight of public opinion and political persuasion to stop the agency...

...Of the fifty members of the Council, only ten are responsible for impact statement review...

...Despite judicial forays into interpretation of the Act, the heart of NEPA remains the environmental impact statement...

...EPA uses three categories in its review: lack of objection, environmental reservations, and environmentally unsatisfactory...

...Leon Billings of the Senate Subcommittee on Clean Air and Water believes that the energy crisis, despite the relaxation of some standards, may produce spin-off benefits for the environment...

...In the Chicod Creek case, which involved a Soil Conservation Service watershed project in North Carolina, the Natural Resources Defense Council argued that the court should continue an injunction against the project because the SCS's impact statement was inadequate...

...In the past two years, the CEQ has received some 4,140 statements...

...The project was delayed, much valuable debate was generated, and the public was alerted to some of the environmental damage which would invariably occur if the pipeline were approved...

...Although the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that construction of the dam should continue, it ruled that there are judicially enforceable rights under NEPA's first section, a ruling which will allow the courts to review agency decisions to proceed with a project once the agency has complied with the impact statement requirement...

...Last month, despite increasing energy and economic difficulties, Congress passed the first national regulations for strip mining of coal...

...In November 1971, EPA found fifty-nine per cent of the statements sufficient, whereas between December 1972 and April 1973, only forty-three per cent were sufficient...

...In the Gilham Dam case, the Army Corps of Engineers had completed about half of an Arkansas dam when it was instructed by the Federal District Court to redraft its environmental impact statement...

...The Department of the Interior was forced to file an impact statement that cost it $9 million, the most expensive in NEPA history...

...President Nixon requested, and Congress approved, measures which will uphold clean air and water standards for a year to balance the energy crunch...

...Senator Edmund Muskie, the primary author of the Clean Air Act—the toughest and most inflexible environmental measure—introduced the amendment to relax clean air and water standards, an amendment which would also require public utilities and stationary sources of pollutant emissions to install permanent pollution control technology by 1977...

...It means we have to select carefully the projects we choose to fight...

...The Supreme Court sided with the students and, as a result, broadened one of NEPA's goals: citizen involvement in environmental issues...

...EPA, which has been reviewing impact statements on highway projects since November 1971, has concluded that since mid-1972, impact statement quality has been declining consistently...

...Hugh Yarrington, senior legal editor for the Environment and Safety Service of the Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., summed up the impact of such court rulings this way: "They open almost any environmental question to litigation...

...In this sense, the proliferation of environmental interest groups is the healthiest sign of the strength of environmental-ism and the future of NEPA...

...Fred Anderson, director of the Environmental Law Reporter and author of NEPA in the Courts, agrees with the report's conclusions...

...Environmentalists are continuing to apply their own pressures with considerable success...

...NEPA's effectiveness," said Sullivan, "depends on the extent to which citizens get into the Act...

...FOUR-YEAR SCORE ON THE ENVIRONMENT JUDITH MILLER Skeptics predicted that the environmental legislation passed overwhelmingly by Congress in the early 1970s would be "politically degradable" when the economic going got tough...

...The court decided that though the project was well under way, a statement must be filed...

...NEPA's weak spots have been exploited and expanded by special interests...

...It noted that "to wait until a technology attains the stage of complete commercial feasibility before considering the possible adverse environmental effects attendant upon ultimate application of the technology will undoubtedly frustrate meaningful consideration and balancing of environmental costs against economic and other benefits...

...we're used to the pressure...

...It's obviously an impossible situation...

...In a review of seventy-six of the first 100 statements filed by states for urban highways, Sullivan's Center found "little indication of environmental concern...