Federal agencies should consider the climate impacts when conducting National Environmental Policy Act reviews of their actions, according to a guidance released Tuesday by the White House Council on Environmental Quality. How exactly they do so is more or less up to them. “Climate change is a fundamental environmental issue, and its effects fall squarely within NEPA’s purview,” the guidance says.
NEPA, enacted in 1970, requires that all federal agencies prepare environmental assessments and environmental impact statements for proposed agency actions.
Much of the new guidance focuses on what the guidance does not, or cannot, do.
The document does not require that agencies use a certain method to conduct their reviews. “Agencies have discretion in how they tailor their individual NEPA reviews to accommodate the approach outlined in this guidance, consistent with the CEQ Regulations and their respective implementing procedures and policies. CEQ does not expect that implementation of this guidance will require agencies to develop new NEPA implementing procedures,” the document says.
The guidance also does not expand the range of agency actions that are subject to NEPA. Federal construction projects, plans to manage and develop federally owned lands, and federal approvals of non-federal activities such as grants, licenses, and permits are subject to NEPA reviews.
The guidance does not “establish any particular quantity of GHG emissions as ‘significantly’ affecting the quality of the human environment or give greater consideration to the effects of GHG emissions and climate change over other effects on the human environment,” it says.
Instead, the document says, the guidance is “intended to assist agencies in disclosing and considering the reasonably foreseeable effects of proposed actions that are relevant to their decision-making processes.”
The guidance, as one would expect, drew different responses from environmental groups and Republicans.
“The Obama Administration has taken another practical step forward in addressing climate change. The new NEPA guidance will ensure disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions and consideration of climate change’s impacts in siting and designing projects,” Elgie Holstein, senior director for strategic planning at the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and vocal climate change denier, countered that CEQ had no authority to release the guidance at all because the CEQ does not currently have a chairman. The last chairman of the CEQ, Nancy Sutley, stepped down in February 2014.
“Under the Vacancies Reform Act, no person may perform the duties of the vacant CEQ Chairman position until the President has nominated a candidate who is subject to Senate confirmation,” Inhofe said. “With no Senate-confirmed chairman, or even a nominee, today’s guidance can have no force or effect as CEQ staff have no authority to take any official action. Further, even if there were a Senate-confirmed Chairman of CEQ, global climate change falls outside of the scope of NEPA so the guidance has no legal basis.”
