On June 11, 1979, a unanimous Supreme Court reversed¹ a controversial 1978 decision by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit² and ruled that federal agency appropriations requests constitute neither "proposals for legislation" nor recommendations for "major Federal actions" within the meaning of §102(2)(C) of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).³ The Court held that NEPA's requirements for the preparation of environmental impact statements (EISs) are therefore inapplicable to budget requests and that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) thus has no procedural obligations under the statute regarding its management of the budget process and is not required to adopt NEPA compliance regulations.

The Court's decision in Andrus v. Sierra Club has finally resolved a longstanding issue regarding the proper interpretation of NEPA's EIS requirement. A more important aspect of the opinion, however, may be its extensive dicta supporting the authoritative nature of the statutory interpretations contained in the Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ's) new NEPA compliance regulations.⁴ The new regulations, which took effect on July 30, 1979 and are binding on all federal agencies, mandate significant changes in agency compliance procedures.⁵ The Supreme Court's admonition in Andrus that they are to be accorded "substantial deference" should prove a potent weapon in the inevitable legal challenges to their validity.