The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)¹ has been heralded as the greatest piece of legislation in recent history for improving the environment. Some critics, However, believe it is vastly overrated and accomplishes little more than allowing a few lawyers to go to the courts and delay actions needed in the best intersest of the nation as a whole. Between these views lies a balanced appraisal of how NEPA has worked in its first six years. And one of its most impressive accomplishments is the way it has led to greater public perception of environmental issues.

When NEPA first went into operation in early 1970, most attention centered on how the Council on Environmental Quality might influence an Administration that up until then had done very little for the environment. Also, those of us on the Council of Environmental Quality hoped, as had the congressional framers of NEPA, that it would force the executive agencies to build environmental concerns into decision making at and early point, although no one had any great expectation that this would happen overnight.