Law Commons^™

Implementing Nepa In The Age Of Climate Change, Jayni Foley Hein, Natalie Jacewicz

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The national government has a crucial role to play in combating climate change, yet federal projects continue to constitute a major source of United States greenhouse gas emissions. Under the National Environmental Policy Act, agencies must consider the environmental impacts of major federal actions before they can move forward. But agencies frequently downplay or ignore the climate change impacts of their projects in NEPA analyses, citing a slew of technical difficulties and uncertainties. This Article analyzes a suite of the most common analytical failures on the part of agencies with respect to climate change: failure to account for a project’s …

Making Bureaucracies Think Distributively: Reforming The Administrative State With Action-Forcing Distributional Review, Kenta Tsuda

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

This Article proposes that agencies analyze the distributional impacts of major regulatory actions, subject to notice-and-comment procedures and judicial review. The proposal responds to the legitimacy crisis that the administrative state currently faces in a period of widening economic inequality. Other progressive reform proposals emphasize the need for democratization of agencies. But these reforms fail to address the two fundamental pitfalls of bureaucratic governance: the “knowledge problem”—epistemic limitations on centrally coordinated decision making—and the “incentives problem”—the challenge of aligning the incentives of administrative agents and their political principals.

A successful administrative reform must address both problems. Looking to the environmental …

A Functional Approach To Risks And Uncertainties Under Nepa , Todd S. Aagaard

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) mandates that federal agencies evaluate the environmental impacts of their proposed actions. This requires agencies to make ex ante predictions about environmental consequences that often involve a significant degree of factual risk or uncertainty. Considerable controversy exists regarding how agencies should address such risks and uncertainties. Current NEPA law adopts a largely ad hoc approach that lacks coherence and analytical rigor. Some environmentalists and legal scholars have called for a greater emphasis on worst-case analysis in environmental planning, especially after the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the meltdowns …

Nepa In The Hot Seat: A Proposal For An Office Of Environmental Analysis, Aliza M. Cohen

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Judicial deference under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) can be problematic. It is a well-established rule of administrative law that courts will grant a high degree of deference to agency decisions. They do this out of respect for agency expertise and policy judgment. This deference is applied to NEPA lawsuits without acknowledging the special pressures that agencies face while assessing the environmental impacts of their own projects. Though there is a strong argument that these pressures undermine the reasons for deferential review, neither the statute nor the courts have provided plaintiffs with adequate means to remedy this problem. Agency …

Federal Agency Treatment Of Uncertainty In Environmental Impact Statements Under The Ceq's Amended Nepa Regulation § 1502.22: Worst Case Analysis Or Risk Threshold, Charles F. Weiss

Michigan Law Review

This Note traces the judicial and administrative treatment of uncertainty under NEPA and supports the CEQ's replacement of worst case analysis with a qualitative probability threshold. Part I discusses the development of reasonableness standards in NEPA common law to define agency obligations prior to promulgation of the worst case analysis regulation. Part II reviews the worst case analysis regulation and its judicial construction. Finally, Part III outlines the amended regulation, which replaces worst case analysis with a probability threshold employing the rule of reason to limit EIS discussion to environmental effects shown through credible scientific evidence to be reasonably foreseeable. …

A New Approach To Review Of Nepa Findings Of No Significant Impact, Geoffrey Garver

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines the confused array of judicial approaches for reviewing agency findings of no significant environmental impact and proposes a standardized, comprehensive approach that ensures compliance with both the procedural and substantive aspects of NEPA. Part I reviews agency procedures mandated by NEPA which ensure that agencies develop a detailed record for judicial scrutiny and constitute the legal basis against which to check agency threshold decisions. Part II examines the conflicting approaches of the lower courts, emphasizing their reliance on Supreme Court decisions, their characterization of the threshold decision as legal or factual, and the burden of proof each …

Does Nepa Require An Impact Statement On Inaction?, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note considers the question of whether NEPA requires an EIS in cases of official refusal to exercise discretionary agency authority. Part I develops the competing theories for resolving this question. The current judicial attitude, which has excluded important cases with far-reaching environmental effects from the EIS requirement, plainly frustrates the statute's procedural purposes. Regulations promulgated by the Council on Environmental Quality define "major federal action" to include the failure to act under certain circumstances, and offer one alternative to the current approach. But the regulations condition the classification of inaction as action upon reviewability under the Administrative Procedures Act, …

Eis Supplements For Improperly Completed Projects: A Logical Extension Of Judicial Review Under Nepa, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that the private cause of action under NEPA retains its utility despite the completion of the project sued upon. Part I describes the procedural implementation of the policy concerns underlying NEPA through the EIS process for proposed actions, and the EIS supplementation process for project changes made after the original EIS has been prepared. Part II examines current law applicable to projects completed in violation of NEPA and concludes that the denial of post-completion relief conflicts with the underlying goals of NEPA. Part III analyzes extension of relief to completed projects, and proposes court-ordered EIS supplementation for …

Putting Bite In Nepa's Bark: New Council On Environmental Quality Regulations For The Preparation Of Environmental Impact Statements, David M. Lesser

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article will examine the new regulations to assess the manner in which they will affect federal decisionmaking. Part I briefly reviews the role the NEPA process has heretofore played in agency decisionmaking and its potential for the future. Parts II, III, and IV discuss specific provisions of the new regulations which may profoundly affect the agencies. Part II examines those sections of the regulations which seek to ensure that the EIS contains the substantive information necessary to fulfill NEPA's policies. Part III discusses significant procedural changes in the environmental assessment process designed to insure that this substantive information is …

Program Environmental Impact Statements: Review And Remedies, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note discusses the application of NEPA to federal programs. It first analyzes when the courts have required a program impact statement and draws upon that analysis to explain the relative functions of site-specific and program statements. It then examines the appropriate scope of judicial inquiry and the proper standards for reviewing federal program compliance with NEPA. Finally, the Note scrutinizes the types of remedies that may be imposed if a program does not comply with NEPA and proposes a procedure for determining the proper scope of judicial remedies.

The Extraterritorial Scope Of Nepa's Environmental Impact Statement Requirement, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note analyzes the extent to which NEPA's section 102(2) procedural requirements, specifically the impact statement requirement of section 102(2) (C), apply to federal agencies in their activities abroad. After determining that Congress does possess the authority to extend the requirements of NEPA to all federal agency actions, and that legislative intent will thus control the territorial scope of these requirements, consideration will be given to the presumption against the extraterritorial application of congressional enactments. It will be concluded that a "clear statement" of congressional intent is not required in the case of NEPA and that the scope of the …

Substance And Procedure In The Construction Of The National Environmental Policy Act, Lloyd A. Fox

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In 1969 Congress enacted the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA or Act) in an effort to deal with the many environmental problems facing the United States. In the three years that the Act has been in force, a large number of suits has been filed by environmental organizations seeking to enforce the standards enunciated in NEPA. The courts hearing these cases generally agree that NEPA imposes only procedural duties on administrative agencies. This implies that the courts will merely determine whether the agency in question has complied with the procedural requirements contained in Section 102 of the Act. This further …

On Leading A Horse To Water: Nepa And The Federal Bureaucracy, Roger C. Cramton, Richard K. Berg

Michigan Law Review

This Article is concerned with the effect of NEPA on administrative decision-making. What benefits has NEPA conferred on us? What dangers have emerged? What questions remain to be clarified if NEP A's benefits are to be achieved while minimizing any negative side effects?