Starting January 1, 1974, the Environmental Protection Agency will issue "environmental explanations" written in laymen's terms for proposed new standards, regulations, and guidelines of national application.¹ The new policy, a response to what EPA called the "growing demand by the judiciary and the public" for full disclosure of the reasons for governmental decisions, would apply to national standards of environmental quality and to emission, effluent, and performance standards. The public should know the environmental effects of major standard-setting actions, the Agency declared, and receive the information necessary for intelligent comment on proposed standards.

Except where a statutory deadline or a compelling need to abate pollution necessitates a delay in its preparation, an explanation will accompany proposed standards when they are first published in the Federal Register. The Agency will undertake to describe in detail the major environmental effects of the proposed action; non-environmental factors affecting the decision, such as legal, technical, social, and economic considerations; alternative possibilities open to the Agency; and the reasons for selecting a particular course of action. When a final standard, regulation, or guideline differs from the original proposal, a supplemental explanation will be published, indicating the reasons for the revisions.