WEPA in the Court: Wisconsin Environmental Policy Act Receives Staunch Judicial Endorsement

October 1977
Citation:
7
ELR 10187
Issue
10

In its first major decision interpreting Wisconsin's Environmental Policy Act,1 the Wisconsin Supreme Court on July 1 announced unswerving support for the Act (known as WEPA) that promises to make environmental analysis an important component of Wisconsin agency decisions. Reviewing an electric utility rate proceeding, the court in Wisconsin's Environmental Decade, Inc. v. Public Service Commission2 (WED II) settled in one stroke many thorny interpretive questions regarding judicial review and the scope of WEPA's requirement that state agencies prepare environmental impact statements on major actions that significantly affect the human environment. The court seemed at times to stretch logic and law to achieve its salutory result, but it nonetheless served notice that it will searchingly review agency actions to assure that strict compliance with WEPA's requirements has occurred.

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WEPA in the Court: Wisconsin Environmental Policy Act Receives Staunch Judicial Endorsement

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