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ARTICLE · 14 MARCH 2012

CEQ Issues Guidance For Streamlining Nepa Reviews: Can You Say "Content-Free"?

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The Council on Environmental Quality has released it guidance on "Improving the Process for Preparing Efficient and Timely Environmental Reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act."

United StatesEnvironment
Seth Jaffe
Seth Jaffe
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The Council on Environmental Quality has released it guidance on "Improving the Process for Preparing Efficient and Timely Environmental Reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act." As far as I can tell, the guidance provides literally nothing on improving the process. It is instead a compendium of how wonderful the process already is in allowing and encouraging appropriate flexibility in complying with NEPA. I'm not sold.

In fairness, CEQ has a tough task here. It's trying to satisfy everyone, including NGOs and environmental justice advocates, as well as project proponents. As I noted yesterday in my post on regulatory reform in Massachusetts, sometimes that's just not possible. Sometimes, improvements require making some people unhappy.

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