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This essay analyzes the decision-making processes used by government agencies to approve
or reject projects that have significant impacts on the environment. One may believe
that an agency will use a well-defined procedural process for making decisions, but
in reality, various internal and external factors have greater influences over the
decision maker. This essay examines some of the real-life inputs into the decision-making
process and analyzes the results of three agency decisions that affected the environment.
To begin with, I will describe some of the basic requirements for decision making
as provided in the implementing regulations for the National Environmental Policy
Act (NEPA). I will also discuss several academic observations about decision making
with an emphasis on environmental assessments. I present three case studies involving
different projects that were analyzed by government agencies using the Environmental
Impact Statement (EIS) process. For each example, I provide an overview of the project
and the significant issues as documented in the respective EISs. I also describe the
agencies’ final decisions and the reasons given for each decision. I plan to demonstrate
that government agencies tend to elevate social, cultural, and political concerns
over the natural environment. In addition, I plan to demonstrate that unique factors
influenced the decision maker in each situation.
In the next section, I describe some of the regulatory requirements for environmental
decision-making.
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