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National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Draft Guidance Issued on Climate Change

By Karen Paczkowski posted 01-21-2015 13:35

  

On December 18th, 2014 the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), released a draft guidance that “describes how Federal departments and agencies should consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change in their [National Environmental Policy Act] NEPA reviews.” If approved, the new guidance would require Federal agencies to consider “the potential effects of a proposed action on climate change,” and “climate-resistant alternatives” for all actions, including land and resource management actions.

NEPA, which was signed into law in 1970, requires Federal agencies to conduct environmental reviews and produce environmental impact statements on all potential actions. As outlined by the CEQ, NEPA does not place environmental preservation above all considerations, but instead “requires Federal officials to consider environmental values alongside the technical and economic considerations” of each project. The previous update issued in 2010 was “part of CEQ’s effort to modernize and reinvigorate Federal agency implementation of NEPA”.

The current draft guidance continues these efforts and “does not create new or additional regulatory requirements, but rather instructs agencies on how to address the greenhouse gas emissions from and the effects of climate change on their proposed actions within the existing NEPA regulatory framework.” The guidance recommends that agencies employ “appropriate quantitative or qualitative analytical methods to ensure useful information is available to inform the public and the decision-making process in distinguishing between” potential actions. However, analysis of actions with lower than 25,000 metric tons of annual carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, should only be done if it can be “easily accomplished”.

The draft guidance is currently open for public comment until February 23, 2015. 

 

- Karen Paczkowski, GSA Science Policy Fellow

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