![]() This report aims to shed light on the actual cause of NEPA project delays and demonstrate why the collection and consideration of public input should be protected to ensure communities continue to have the opportunity to weigh in on project alternatives. ![]() Studies demonstrate that delays in NEPA’s environmental review process for major infrastructure projects are often due to “inadequate agency budgets, staff turnover, delays receiving information from permit applicants, and compliance with other laws.” 6 Yet NEPA still faces opponents that mischaracterize these project delays with the goal of weakening and even eliminating federal environmental review requirements. Every democratic, developed nation provides for some form of public consideration of environmental effects, alternatives, and mitigation for government decisions on major infrastructure projects. This environmental impact assessment model of so-called environmental democracy has been emulated globally. ![]() NEPA requirements for communication with states, Tribes, local governments, private parties, and the affected public have made the NEPA process the foundation for federal coordination and assessment of the wide-ranging consequences of proposals for federal action. Publication of environmental documents assures the public that an agency has considered environmental concerns in its decision-making process and “perhaps more significantly, provides a springboard for public comment.” 4 As a “springboard” for public comment, the NEPA decision-making process allows diverse stakeholders to participate in agency decisions that would otherwise be obscure and address consequences of agency action that would be overlooked or disregarded. Supreme Court has found, simply by focusing an agency’s attention on the environmental consequences of a proposed project, “NEPA ensures that important effects will not be overlooked or underestimated, only to be discovered after resources have been committed or the die otherwise cast.” 2 In addition, the national policy of NEPA Section 101 and NEPA’s requirement that agencies prepare detailed impact statements “inevitably bring pressure to bear on agencies ‘to respond to the needs of environmental quality.’” 3 Moreover, it guarantees that the relevant information will be made available to the larger audience that may also play a role in both the decision-making process and the implementation of that decision. First enacted by Congress in 1970, NEPA functions as a critical climate action and environmental justice tool requiring agencies to consider the environmental and public health impacts of proposed projects. The National Environment Policy Act (NEPA) process of environmental review ensures that a federal agency, in reaching a decision, will have available and will consider information concerning significant environmental effects of its proposal for agency action. The NEPA process can draw out traditional ecological knowledge and the special expertise of Tribes, benefiting the Tribe, the developer, and other stakeholders. Trade-offs must be examined, and conflicts must be expected and managed.Įngagement should focus on real issues and stakeholder concerns to efficiently use time and resources.Ĭommunity benefits agreements and other forms of compensatory mitigation can help manage trade-offs and work to benefit affected communities and project developers. Every project involves a unique collection of stakeholders and issues to be navigated. ![]() Methods of engagement are not one-size-fits-all, and solutions cannot be copied and pasted from one project to another, although they can serve as helpful precedents. Although some highlighted projects suffered from a lengthy permitting timeline, the NEPA process ultimately supported better project decisions and successful outcomes. Early and effective engagement with all stakeholders-local, state, Tribal, and federal-can help avoid delays in the project life cycle.
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