Summary of the National Environmental Policy Act and Implementing Regulations - Environmental Impact Analysis: Process and Methods - page 52

European Union has a more prescribed method of evaluating environmen-
tal impact analyses with over 140 questions that reviewers must address on
every study covering such topics as alternatives, description of the existing
environment, mitigation, and nontechnical summary. Although the rat-
ing of the environmental analyses reflects substantial variation by country
and type of projects, evaluation of 50 randomly selected studies in three
EU countries consistently reflected over half as having inadequate informa-
tion in most or all areas (Peterson 2010). Also similar to the rating of NEPA
EISs, the evaluation of the randomly selected European environmental eval-
uations found “C” (on a scale of A to E with A being the highest rating) to be
the most common rating.
2.5 NEPAImplementation
NEPA requirements as laid out generally by the Act and then fleshed out by
both CEQ Regulations and CEQs follow-up of the Forty Most Asked NEPA
Questions established the framework for implementing the national policy.
Over the last 40 plus years, this framework has been filled in and expanded
by separate and parallel processes including:
r Court rulings establishing what constituted NEPA compliance and
specifically the required “hard look” at impacts before a federal
agency took action.
r Each agency developing their own regulations consistent with CEQ
Regulations and focused on their mission, goals, and common
agency activities.
r Experience gained by agency personnel and the growing private
sector of environmental analysis practitioners, particularly within a
growing environmental consulting industry.
r General feedback from the public and more technical input from envi-
ronmental, engineering, planning, and social science stakeholders.
r Development of state programs to add more specificity and fill gaps
in NEPA jurisdiction.
r Ongoing higher education to produce BS and MS programs in envi-
ronmental science and policy.
The framework and continuing development of environmental analysis pro-
cesses and methods have resulted in an established approach to implement
NEPA and expectations for the critical elements in the process. These overall
and element-specific approaches are presented in the following chapter and
illustrated by case studies. As described, there needs to be an overall plan and
approach but as shown in the case studies, there is no single and universal plan.