The National Environmental Policy Act

Lynton Keith Caldwell

Description

Why has "environment" been a difficult issue for US public policy and what is needed to solve the problem?

"The National Environmental Policy Act has grown more, not less, important in the decades since its enactment. No one knows more about NEPA than Lynton Caldwell. And no one has a clearer vision of its relevance to our future. Highly recommended." —David W. Orr, Oberlin College

What has been achieved since the National Environmental Policy Act was passed in 1969? This book points out where and how NEPA has affected national environmental policy and where and why its intent has been frustrated. The roles of Congress, the President, and the courts in the implementation of NEPA are analyzed. Professor Caldwell also looks at the conflicted state of public opinion regarding the environment and conjectures as to what must be done in order to develop a coherent and sustained policy.

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Environment: Values and Perceptions
2. NEPA: Enactment and Interpretation
3. Environmental Impact Assessment
4. Integrating Environmental Policy
5. International Environmental Policy
6. NEPA and the Global Environment
7. Future Directions: Beyond NEPA
Summation
Notes and References
Appendix: The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969
Index

Sujets

• Public Policy
• Environmental Protection
• Environmental Conservation
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• General officer
• Central
• General
• Law
• Nature

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 22 février 1999
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253028464
• Langue: English

Extrait

The National Environmental Policy Act
The National Environmental Policy Act
                                                            
AN AGENDA FOR THE FUTURE
Lynton Keith Caldwell
Indiana University Press
B L O O M I N G T O N  A N D  I N D I A N A P O L I S 
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA
http://www.indiana.edu/~iupress
Telephone orders   800-842-6796
Fax orders   812-855-7931
Orders by e-mail   [e-mail]
© 1998 by Lynton Keith Caldwell
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Caldwell, Lynton Keith, date
    The National Environmental Policy Act : an agenda for the future / Lynton Keith Caldwell.
         p. cm.
      Includes bibliographical references and index.
      ISBN 0-253-33444-6 (cloth : alk. paper)
    1. Environmental law—United States. 2. Environmental policy—United States. 3. United States. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. I. Title.
  KF3775.C35 1998
  344.73′046-dc21 98-38666
  1  2  3  4  5  03  02  01  00  99  98
In Recognition of the Foresight and Statesmanship of Henry M. Jackson 1912–1983 Senator, United States Congress 1953–1983
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Reaffirming NEPA
1. Environmental Policy: Values and Perceptions
2. NEPA: Enactment and Interpretation
3. Environmental Impact Assessment
4. Integrating Environmental Policy
5. International Environmental Policy
6. NEPA and the Global Environment
7. Future Directions: Beyond NEPA
Appendix: The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969
Notes
Index
PREFACE
        This book has been written in the belief that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) offers a set of goals that could guide the nation toward an economically and environmentally tolerable, sustainable future. To this end NEPA is presented on a trajectory in time and space — from what its authors intended it to be in 1970 to what it could become in the 21st century. This requires placing NEPA into context, identifying major environmental issues to which NEPA has always been relevant but which are now acquiring major transnational and global dimensions. The space dimension has thus expanded, not because of textual changes in the Act, but because the extent of its practical relevance is beginning to be understood. While the scope of its concern has always been as broad as the human environment, occasions for its application have increased.
The book does not offer a legal or legislative analysis, or a detailed history, of NEPA. These have been covered in other books. The National Environmental Policy Act emphasizes the intent of the Act, its prescriptive declaration, and its unrealized potential. It deals with redirecting national policy through procedural reform, but the emphasis is on policy. It is concerned less with how NEPA has been administered than with its potential for guidance of American policy in the interacting, globalizing world of nations in the 21st century. Its documentation is limited to sources that illustrate, elaborate, or differ from arguments advanced in the text, as well as confirm direct quotations. The Notes and References do not offer a comprehensive bibliography of the subject matter. Such a listing could easily exceed the volume of the present text. General accessibility was one criterion for inclusion, and the omission of pertinent books and articles does not indicate a judgment on their quality or importance. It should be unnecessary to note that the human species is identified alternatively as man, mankind, humans, humanity, and the human species. Within the context of this book gender distinctions are irrelevant.
While Congress has made numerous exceptions to NEPA’s application (at least twenty-eight indicated in the U.S. Code as of 1997), there has been virtually no change in its text since its enactment in 1969. But during the past thirty years, significant changes have occurred in the circumstances to which it is applicable. On a space-time trajectory the position of NEPA has changed; the rapid interrelating and globalizing of international affairs during the latter decades of this century have involved the United States in actions all over the world, and where Federal action occurs, NEPA applies. In brief, the space dimension of NEPA’s applicability has expanded. The time dimension has also changed as history accelerates and moves ever more swiftly toward an uncertain future. NEPA does not impose American values and requirements on other people. Its purposes and procedures apply only to actions by the Federal government of the United States.
Americans are divided over how the future should be approached, and this division affects the future of NEPA and the nation. The general—and hence imperfect—division is between an optimistic laissez-faire, market-directed ideology and a contrasting cautionary opinion arguing the need for forecasting, anticipatory planning, and adaptive management. This latter implies an effort to project a preferred future embracing the goals set forth in Section 101(b) of NEPA. The laissez-faire followers are largely cornucopians who foresee a future of “progress” and “abundance” if governments do not interfere. The contrasting opinion, held by most “environmentalists” (among many others), is doubtful regarding the future. Some are called “catastrophists”—the so-called gloom and doom school of foreboding. More, however, take a precautionary viewpoint, unpersuaded that individuals pursuing their private interests will contribute to the public good. From the environmentally concerned viewpoint, NEPA provides an agenda for society-wide participatory planning toward a preferred future. Trend analysis and forecasting are authorized under NEPA’s Title II, Section 204, but beyond the Global 2000 Report of 1980/81, the Council on Environmental Quality has been unable to fulfill this part of its mandate.
For more than 300 years a unifying goal for the European colonists and their American descendants had been the “conquest,” “subjugation,” and domestication of the continent. Today this purpose has been recast as economic growth and expanding development—but it no longer has a unifying force, and it provides no guidance toward a quality of life in the future. The historic unifying factor for Americans was the continental frontier. Since the closure of that frontier at the end of the 19th century, Americans have had no surrogate or replacement. In 1945 a report to the president from the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development was titled Science: The Endless Frontier . Following the launching of the Russian Earth Orbiting Satellite (Sputnik) in 1957, outer space represented a new frontier. But these and other evocations of the frontier ethos have never offered an opportunity for the participation of all Americans; neither have they influenced the ethos and expectations of the nation comparable to the westward-moving land frontier.
Whether the environmental principles and goals declared in NEPA can or will become a unifying factor in the civic life of Americans is uncertain. It may be an integrative possibility. Probabilities are uncertain, but evidence from the sciences, along with statistical projections from measured trends, indicates serious trouble ahead for humankind and the biosphere. Perceived threats of disaster have sometimes had a unifying effect on societies. The 1993 World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity (Union of Concerned Scientists) reported that “Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course.” Many similar, highly informed assessments have been made. A prudent and rational response to these forecasts would be recognition of NEPA as a protective national strategy for a sustainable and enhanced future.
That NEPA offers this possibility is the principal thesis of this book. Environmental protection measures adopted thus far have done little more than slow the rate of adverse trends, and seem to be inadequate to prevent an ecological impoverishment of the Earth. It may be that the processes of global climate change, thinning of the protective ozone layer, increase in human populations, loss of biodiversity, and deterioration of agricultural productivity are now built irreversibly into the world system. Future generations may perforce adapt to a world more crowded, more polluted