| The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) requires federal agencies to consider environmental impacts as part of their decision-making processes. Although critics and advocates debate the overall effects of NEPA, most agree that the Act has fundamentally changed the way the government makes decisions affecting the environment. The United States Forest Service is among the agencies most impacted by NEPA. For more than a decade, the Forest Service has warned the procedural demands of NEPA hinder the agency's efforts to manage the National Forests properly. Given the push to reform NEPA processes in the Forest Service, it is critical that agency leaders and managers better understand how NEPA is structured and functions within the context of agency subsystems.;This study uses institutional theory, a subset of organizational theory, and an exploratory case study approach to examine the way NEPA is understood and practiced within two Forest Service Regions. More specifically, the study uses the lenses provided by old, new, and neo institutional theory to identify the internal and external forces that most strongly affect the agency's administration of the Act. It also articulates the relationships and interactions among those forces. By mapping the institutional space surrounding the agency's application of NEPA, the study offers practical insights about the Forest Service's administration of the Act and advances the development of modern institutional theory. |
