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Draft environmental review guidance out Council on Environmental Quality has draft out; goal to improve efficiency, timeliness of National Environmental Policy Act reviews Petroleum News
The Council on Environmental Quality, created by the National Environmental Policy Act in 1970, is charged with overseeing NEPA implementation by federal agencies.
The council has released draft guidance for federal agencies designed to improve the efficiency and timeliness of NEPA environmental reviews. The council said the draft guidance, released Dec. 7, is part of a broader effort to “modernize and reinvigorate” NEPA implementation, and also supports the goals of President Obama’s Aug. 31, 2011, memorandum on “Speeding Infrastructure Development through More Efficient and Effective Permitting and Environmental Review.”
There is a 45-day public comment period.
The council said its regulations describe efficiencies that can be applied when preparing environmental impact statements, the most intensive type of NEPA environmental review.
“The draft guidance clarifies that these efficiencies can and should be applied to all types of environmental reviews,” including environmental assessments. As an example, the council said the guidance makes it clear that scoping — a way to identify relevant issues and eliminate unnecessary work — “can and should be used for all types of environmental work.”
Guidance principles The council said the draft guidance outlines principles for agencies to follow in NEPA environmental reviews:
• NEPA encourages simple, straightforward, concise reviews and documentation;
• NEPA should be integrated into project planning, not conducted after planning is complete;
• NEPA reviews should coordinate and take advantage of existing documents and studies;
• NEPA reviews should use early and well-defined scoping to target environmental reviews to appropriate issues and avoid unnecessary work;
• Agencies should develop meaningful and expeditious timelines for environmental reviews; and
• Agencies should target responses to comments to appropriate issues raised.
Three alternatives NEPA requires federal agencies to consider potential environmental consequences of their proposed action — and any reasonable alternatives — before deciding whether and in what form to take an action, the council said.
NEPA compliance can take three forms: a categorical exclusion, an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement.
The council is encouraging agencies “to concentrate on environmental analysis in their EAs and EISs, not to produce an encyclopedia of all applicable information,” and also said all NEPA environmental documents “should be written in plain language, follow a clear format, and emphasize important portions of the impact analysis over mere background material.”
Both EAs and EISs should be prepared in conjunction with development of a proposed action, “and in time to inform the public and the decisionmaker,” the council said.
Scoping is provided to determine the issues an EA or EIS will address and indentify “significant issues related to the proposed action that will be considered in the analysis.”
Cooperating agencies — those with jurisdiction by law or special expertise on an environmental issue — “can work with the lead agency to ensure that, whenever possible, one NEPA review process informs all the decisions needed to determine whether and, if so, how a proposed action will proceed,” the council said.
Joint NEPA reviews The council also said that its regulations provide authority for joint EISs with state or local governments where law or ordinances “contain environmental impact analysis and documentation requirements in addition to, but not in conflict, with those in NEPA.”
Council regulations also allow adoption of one federal agency’s EIS, or portion thereof, by another federal agency, and agencies preparing EAs should also consider adoption of another agency’s “EA when the EA or a portion thereof addresses the proposed action” and meets standards under NEPA, the council’s regulations and the adopting agency’s NEPA implementing procedures.
The council recommends incorporation by reference, and expediting responses to comments by providing “a reasonable response to comments on a draft EIS by focusing on the environmental issues and information conveyed by the comments.”
Establishment of clear time lines for NEPA reviews “promotes the efficiency of the NEPA process,” the council said.
The council said “methods such as integrating planning and environmental reviews and permitting, coordinating multi-agency or multi-governmental reviews and approvals, and settling schedules for completing the environmental review will assist agencies in preparing efficient and timely EAs and EISs consistent with legal precedent and agency NEPA experience and practice.”
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