Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
2.4
Clean Air Act as It Relates to NEPA
After a number of years and a somewhat rocky start, NEPA was well estab-
lished and regulations to implement the Act had been promulgated. But
who was to oversee and coordinate federal agencies' NEPA procedures
and compliance? Congress had mandated that each agency was responsi-
ble for compliance and no external government enforcement or police force
was authorized. But without some coordination, the inconsistencies among
agencies would make it very difficult for the public to provide informed
and constructive input because they would not know what to expect if each
agency addressed NEPA requirements differently. Also inconsistency among
federal agencies could be a litigation nightmare with the courts faced with
determining what constituted an acceptable “hard look” at environmental
implications if each of the dozens of federal agencies followed a totally dif-
ferent implementation of the Act and CEQ Regulations.
Some assumed CEQ would take the role of NEPA compliance coordination
and oversight. However, CEQ had an extremely limited budget (restricted to
$300,000 a year) and little or no internal technical expertise in all the disci-
plines required for comprehensive environmental analysis. Thus they were
nowhere near equipped to coordinate the submission and review of approxi-
mately two EISs per day (see below for a discussion on EIS submission rate
and related issues) plus perhaps 20 times as many other NEPA documents
and agency regulations.
The U.S. EPA did have the authority under the Clean Air Act, Section 309
(42 U.S.C. 7609) to review and comment on the environmental impact of any
federal action. EPA also had the technical expertise, staff support, and budget
to take on this role, and they have taken seriously the responsibility, of coor-
dination of NEPA, including serving as the clearinghouse for EISs and other
environmental documents from all federal agencies. The 1984 promulgation
of federal agency action impact review procedures (U.S. EPA 1984) made
their role in NEPA compliance clear to the public and other federal agencies.
Thus all agencies were required to officially file EIS documents with EPA
and as of Fall 2012, filings were required to be electronic: http://yosemite.epa
.gov/OEI/webguide.nsf/content/pdf_metadata.
Central components of the oversight procedures are the review, written
comment, and rating of environmental analyses conducted by other federal
agencies. The review is focused primarily on draft EISs but other documents
such as EAs (i.e., mini EIS, Section 3.1.4 of the topic) and CATEX (see Section
3.6 of the topic) are frequently reviewed upon request. The review and rat-
ing are focused on the draft EIS because a proposed action requiring an EIS
represents a major federal action with potentially significant environmental
impact, and as a draft there is the opportunity to affect the analysis and
agency-proposed action before irreversible action is taken. If the comments
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