The USDA Forest Service recently revised its regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The revisions are intended to ensure that the regulations adequately inform the agency of any direct adverse environmental impacts of its projects without creating a “’substantive roadblock’ that ‘paralyze[s]’‘agency-decisionmaking.’” The revisions were prompted by two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions. The first decision resulted in the repeal of the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations upon which the agency’s prior regulations had been based. And the second decision represented a “course correction” to reduce what some viewed as judicial micromanagement of agency decisions.
The revisions to the regulations were wide-ranging. Some of the notable changes were to emphasize the page limits on environmental analyses (150 pages for Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) and 75 pages for Environmental Assessments (EA)). In addition, the agency has two years to complete an EIS and one year to complete an EA. Also, the agency can but is not required to prepare written responses to the comments it receives from the public on its draft environmental analyses. As to ongoing NEPA processes, the agency has given agency personnel the discretion to use the new regulations or complete the process under the prior regulations.