Toward a Better NEPA Process for Decisionmakers

July 2009
Citation:
39
ELR 10656
Issue
7
Author
Edward A. Boling

Some extraordinary government officials have used the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) as a national charter to structure decisions that promote sustainable development and agency governance for protection of the environment. They appreciated that NEPA establishes policy, sets goals (§101), and provides means (§102) and authority (§105) for carrying out the policy. The testimony of Adm. James Watkins, while Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, is illustrative: "thank God for NEPA because there were so many pressures to make a selection for a technology that might have been forced upon us and that would have been wrong for the country...." Admiral Watkins and his successor, Hazel O'Leary, used reform of the NEPA process to move that department toward a more transparent problem-solving approach to decisionmaking.

Edward A. Boling has served as Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) General Counsel (2008-2009) and Deputy General Counsel (2000-2007). The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect the view or policies of the CEQ.
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