The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969¹ mandated that federal agencies consider the environmental effects of proposed agency action in addition to their primary agency goals. Section 102(2)(c), NEPA's action-forcing mechanism, requires agencies to prepare impact statements on major federal actions that significantly affect the environment. In the more than four years from NEPA's enactment up to May 30, 1974, draft or final statements had been filed concerning 5,235 separate agency actions.² Nevertheless, the process of achieving compliance with the dictates of NEPA has been protracted in several federal agencies; many of these agencies have become targets of litigation by environmental groups intending to force agency decisionmakers to change noncomplying policies.

One prime offender has been the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which filed only two impact statements prior to January, 1974. The recent decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Harlem Valley Transportation Association v. Stafford³ is the latest in a series of cases with the same fundamental theme: the ICC has persistently dragged its feet in implementing NEPA.