The Role and Use of Programmatic Environmental Impact Statements And Environmental Assessments in Fulfilling NEPA and State Environmental Mandates

Abstract

The Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ’s) regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Title 40, Part 1500 (40 CFR 1500) implement Section 102(2) of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended (NEPA). In doing so, the CEQ’s regulations tell federal agencies what they must do to comply with the procedures and achieve the goals of NEPA. The CEQ’s regulations at 40 CFR 1502.4(b) and (c) allow federal agencies to prepare environmental impact statements (EISs) on “broad actions” in which federal proposals can be evaluated geographically, generically, or by stage of technological development. Federal agencies have prepared broad action EISs and programmatic Environmental Assessments (EAs), when appropriate, to help in complying with NEPA. For their part, State agencies also have prepared these types of broad action documents to meet the relevant environmental regulations of the State. The purpose of this capstone paper is to provide a focused survey of programmatic EISs (or PEISs), generic EISs (or GEISs), and programmatic Environmental Assessments, that have been prepared by Federal and State agencies. This paper will further discuss the role and use of these “broad action” environmental documents in aiding the preparing agency’s decision-making process while meeting that agency’s regulatory mandate.