The National Environmental Policy Act: An investigation into the improvement of federal agencies in the environmental impact statement process over time

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was passed in the waning days of 1969 and signed into law by President Nixon on 1 January 1970. It is considered to be the “Magna Charta” and the bedrock of environmental law and policy. Since its passage, there has been and continues to be a debate as to whether or not agencies of the federal government use NEPA as a decision-making tool or if agencies merely practice procedural compliance, since NEPA is considered to be “essentially procedural.”; The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is charged with reviewing, commenting on, and rating the adequacy and decision of every draft and final environmental impact statement written by federal agencies. That requirement provides the only common standard of review on the environmental impact statement process. That common standard provides a uniform system for evaluating the NEPA process and analyzing whether or not agencies have improved in the NEPA process over the thirty years it has been in existence.; This study traces the development of the NEPA process since NEPA was passed in 1970. Two periods are discussed, from 1970 to 1978, before NEPA regulations were promulgated, and from 1979 to the present, after NEPA regulations were promulgated. The impact of the Council on Environmental Quality, the Congress, the Executive, and the Judicial branches on NEPA is traced and assessed. The role of the Judicial branch and the agencies is found to have and still has the broadest impact on effective implementation.; A 10% sample of EPA ratings and comments was subjected to empirical analysis to determine if agencies have improved in expertise in the NEPA process since 1979. The analysis assessed four groupings, All Agencies, Land Management Agencies (U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior), Land Development Agencies (U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), and All Other Agencies. The results indicate that expertise has not improved, but has declined despite 30 years of experience with the NEPA process. Some theories of why expertise has declined rather than improved are discussed.