National Environmental Protection Act, Essay Example

NEPA, or the National Environmental Protection Act, is the national U.S. policy that is designed to protect, maintain and enhance the environment, in order to allow human beings and nature to exist in productive harmony (National environmental policy act (NEPA), 2010) The need for NEPA evolved from the public’s growing awareness about damaging effects of human behavior and actions on the ecology, wildlife, and eventually on public health as well.  People began to recognize that it was necessary to enact legislation protecting the environment because of the motivations of economic pressures and their frequently damaging impact on the environment.

NEPA was signed into law in 1969, and mandated that the Federal government, along with state and local governments foster and promote the welfare, create and maintain conditions under which man and nature can coexist, and fulfill the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations of Americans (NEPA process). In addition, the Act requires that Federal agencies consider environmental factors along with any human costs when making decisions that will have an impact on the environment and its surrounding it.

Three levels of NEPA analysis are:

• A Categorical Exclusion, or CE, which is a combination of actions that an agency has concluded does not have any individual or cumulative effect on the quality of the human environment.
• Environmental assessment, the purpose of which is to make the decision about whether an Environmental Impact Statement will be required for a specific action. This assessment examines the impact on the quality of the human environment, acts as a means for interdisciplinary study of the proposal, looks at appropriate improvements to the project, and  if an Environmental Impact Statement is necessary, prepares it.
• Environmental Impact Statement, the level of analysis that is performed to support significant major Federal actions that dramatically affect the quality of the human environment (Fact sheet 2000.).

When all of that data is gathered by the levels of assessment conducted, decisions are made regarding the viability and benefits of continuing with a project.  Making decisions about which actions to pursue as well as which to eliminate are helped considerably by the Council on Environmental Quality, which helps to facilitate coordination of Federal agencies in their implementation of NEPA guidelines.  During the years of the Bush administration, for example, when the goal was deregulation and President Bush believed that industries had the ability and motivation to regulate themselves, the need for NEPA was only enhanced because it was clear that the profit motive caused responsible behavior by industries to fall by the wayside, hence, the climate in which the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill was made possible.  This catastrophe is either the best or worst example of what happens when industries self-regulate and are not subject to environmental regulations such as those provided by NEPA.

References

If Fact sheet. (2000, January). Retrieved  October 21, 2010, from The National Environmental Policy Act: http://www.p2pays.org/ref/07/06027

National environmental policy act (NEPA). (2010, October 21). Retrieved October 21, 2010, from United States Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/battle_mountain_field/blm_information/national_environmental.print.html.

NEPA process. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2010, from Port Mackenzie Rail Extension: http://www.portmacrail.com/NEPA.html