Widening the scope: strategic environmental assessment - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 363

decisions related to site-specific construction, development, or resource
extraction projects. NEPA is virtually ignored in formulating specific
policies and often is skirted in developing programs, usually because
agencies believe that NEPA cannot be applied within the time available or
without a detailed proposal. Instead, agencies tend to examine project-
level environmental effects in microscopic detail. The reluctance to apply
NEPA analysis to programs and policies reflects the fear that microscopic
detail will be expected. (CEQ 1997)
Only a few of the USA's 50 states have SEA regulations. Of these, the SEA system
established by the California Environmental Quality Act of 1986 (State of California
1986) is the most well developed. “Program environmental impact reports” (PEIRs) are
required for series of actions that can be characterized as one large project and are related
geographically, as logical parts in a chain of contemplated actions, in connection with the
issuance of rules or regulations, or as individual activities carried out under the same
authority and having generally similar environmental effects (CEQA 15168). Like project
EIAs, PEIRs must include a description of the action, a description of the baseline
environment, an evaluation of the action's impacts, a reference to alternatives, an
indication of why some impacts were not evaluated, the organizations consulted, the
responses of these organizations to the EIS and the agency's response to the responses.
12.3.2 Canada
A two-tier system, with somewhat overlapping requirements, operates at the federal level
in Canada. On the one hand, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act of 1995
requires project EIAs. One type of EIA, for projects with known effects that can be easily
mitigated, is a “class screening”: a generic assessment of all projects within a class. These
class screenings, which are discussed further in Section 10.8, are arguably a form of
programme SEAs. Only two class screenings had been carried out by the end of 2003: for
routine projects in the town of Banff and for the importation of certified honeybees to
Canada.
On the other hand, a recent Cabinet Directive requires SEA of PPPs. The 1999
“Cabinet Directive on the Environmental Assessment of Policy, Plan and Program
Proposals” (CEAA 1999) is an evolution and strengthening of a 1990 Cabinet Directive
which required federal departments and agencies to carry out SEA for policy and
programme proposals submitted to Cabinet. In 1993 the Federal Environmental
Assessment and Review Office (FEARO) published procedural guidance for these SEAs
(FEARO 1993). The 1999 Directive expects federal departments and agencies to conduct
an SEA of policy, plan or programme proposals where (1) the proposal is submitted to a
minister or Cabinet for approval and (2) implementation of the proposal may result in
important environmental effects. The Directive does not propose a single SEA
methodology, but notes that an SEA should:
• consider the scope and nature of the likely environmental effects;
• consider the need for mitigation to reduce or eliminate adverse effects;
• consider the likely importance of any post-mitigation environmental effects;
• involve the public as appropriate; and