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Public lands across the United States are managed for multiple uses, resources, and values ranging from energy development to rare plant conservation. Intensified energy development and other land use changes across the Southwestern United States have increased the need for proactive management to mitigate impacts to rare plants. Habitat suitability models can inform decision‐making and lead to more effective conservation of rare plants and their habitats, but high‐quality models that are suited for use at local scales are lacking for many species. Our team of scientists and managers developed ensembles of habitat suitability models for five rare plant species in New Mexico using a coproduced, iterative framework complemented by comprehensive ground truthing and tailoring of products for use in public land decisions. Our process resulted in substantial differences from initial models through changes to environmental predictors, species occurrence and background data, and development of new species‐specific predictors. Involving species experts and end users in model development can strengthen the process and resulting model and build understanding and trust in final products. Both factors can promote use of models to inform public land permitting and planning decisions that may affect rare plants, including by guiding development away from highly suitable habitats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public lands are often managed for multiple uses ranging from energy development to rare plant conservation. Habitat models can help land managers assess and mitigate potential effects of projects on rare plants, but it is unclear how models are currently being used. Our goal was to better understand how staff in the Bureau of Land Management currently use habitat models to inform their decisions, and perceived challenges and benefits associated with that use. We first examined litigation documents to determine whether the agency has been challenged on its use of data for rare plants and found no relevant legal challenges. Second, we analyzed model use in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documents and found no clear citations of habitat models. Finally, we conducted interviews with agency staff who analyze potential effects of proposed actions on rare plants in NEPA documents. The primary challenges interviewees faced in using models related to data organization and access, model quality and accuracy, and institutional capacity. Interviewees believed models could be used more to inform decisions and actions to conserve rare plants and rare plant habitat on public lands and recommended improving staff access to models, creating models for additional species, and addressing staffing limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental justice, which seeks to achieve equity in the process and outcomes of environmental policy and decision-making, is a broadly recognized policy objective. As a foundational environmental regulation and opportunity for public engagement with federal decision-making, the United States' National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is frequently considered a promising venue for addressing environmental justice. While environmental justice has been a recognized consideration within the NEPA process since the 1990s, it is by no means a streamlined process. Understanding the barriers and opportunities to better incorporation of EJ principles in NEPA review processes is critical for understanding how to move from EJ as a concept to actual implementation. Drawing on interviews with federal agencies, project developers, nongovernmental organizations, and other organizations who contributed to NEPA reviews for projects across the US, this paper explores how environmental justice–specifically procedural, distributive, and recognition justice–is currently addressed in the preparation of Environmental Impact Statements and identifies barriers and opportunities for better inclusion. We find that many NEPA practitioners see NEPA as a valuable tool for achieving procedural and distributive justice. However, a number of institutional and organizational barriers exist, most prominently a structure that hinders opportunities for meaningful public engagement, ambiguity in how distributive justice is defined and implemented, and a lack of substantive requirements for potential distributional inequities to be addressed.

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) processes are grounded on the assumption that producing information about environmental impacts will yield better environmental decisions. Despite the ubiquity of EIA as a policy tool, there is scant evidence of its environmental, social, or economic impacts. Focusing on Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) prepared for water and energy-related projects under the US National Environmental Policy Act, this analysis addresses two questions: (1) What is the balance of environmental impacts associated with infrastructure decisions?; and (2) How does the content of stakeholder feedback received during the review phase differ from draft EIS content, and does this correspond to any changes in the final EIS? We demonstrate the use of automated text mining approaches to identify the distribution of impacts, measure the content of public comments, and observe whether values reflected in comments are associated with a shift in emphases between the draft and final EIS. EISs are shown to convey evenly distributed focus across multiple impact areas. However, we observe no substantive change in focal emphasis between draft and final issuances. This calls into question assumptions about the role that public participation plays in bringing new information to light or changing the course of action.

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) processes are grounded on the assumption that producing information about environmental impacts will yield better environmental decisions. Despite the ubiquity of EIA as a policy tool, there is scant evidence of its environmental, social, or economic impacts. Focusing on Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) prepared for water and energy-related projects under the US National Environmental Policy Act, this analysis addresses two questions: (1) What is the balance of environmental impacts associated with infrastructure decisions?; and (2) How does the content of stakeholder feedback received during the review phase differ from draft EIS content, and does this correspond to any changes in the final EIS? We demonstrate the use of automated text mining approaches to identify the distribution of impacts, measure the content of public comments, and observe whether values reflected in comments are associated with a shift in emphases between the draft and final EIS. EISs are shown to convey evenly distributed focus across multiple impact areas. However, we observe no substantive change in focal emphasis between draft and final issuances. This calls into question assumptions about the role that public participation plays in bringing new information to light or changing the course of action.

Recognizing that centuries of mistreatment of low-income and minority communities by governments and corporations have resulted in widespread exposure to environmental harms, academics and policymakers are seeking ways to improve environmental justice. While it is commonly assumed that improved procedural justice (meaningful participation in decision making) should improve distributive justice (equitable distribution of environmental harms and benefits), empirical evidence of this link is nascent. This paper evaluates whether differing approaches to procedural justice shape recognition of distributive injustices by policymakers, focusing on implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in Puerto Rico. NEPA requires federal agencies to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of projects they implement, fund, or permit; this review commonly includes an assessment of the project's impacts on distributive justice. Drawing on document analysis and interviews with project developers, regulators, and community organizations, we explore how and why four NEPA reviews consider distributional impacts. In all four cases, the community mobilized to voice concerns about the proposed projects' impacts, but the lead agencies and project developers did not always create the space for those voices to collaboratively shape the review. This demonstrates the role of the project developer in how distributive justice considerations are treated, as project leads have discretion on whether and when to provide space for community groups to participate in the process. This research makes two primary contributions. First, by linking features of the decision-making process with environmental justice-related outputs, this research provides practical understanding of ways to support distributive justice and expands knowledge about how participatory governance works within the context of US environmental policy. Second, by studying NEPA's implementation in Puerto Rico, we assess challenges associated with implementing Environmental Impact Assessment in a territorial setting, where the demographics and intensity of environmental problems are distinct from the 'traditional' American context the policies were designed to protect. • Communities mobilized around environmental justice (EJ) impacts in all projects. • No EIS found significant impacts on low-income communities, suggesting a disconnect between community and NEPA views of EJ. • Collaborative process had most consideration of EJ impacts in the EIS. • Lead agency and project proponents shaped whether community voices were considered. • All projects faced extreme delays and many were later canceled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relevant science is essential for effective natural resource decision making, including on public lands managed by the United States Department of the Interior (DOI) Bureau of Land Management (BLM), that cover 1/10th of the United States. Most of the BLM’s management decisions require analyses under the National Environmental Policy Act, and the use of science in these decisions is often challenged. Using coproduction, we assembled an interagency team of scientists and resource managers to develop a method for using public litigation to identify priority science needs for the BLM. We searched publicly available case documents finalized from 2015–2019 in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico within federal courts and the DOI Office of Hearings and Appeals, and identified 108 case documents that involved challenges to the BLM’s use of science. We retained 48 case documents that contained at least one challenge about the BLM’s use of science for a specific resource. We categorized all challenges in each case document according to the proposed action, affected resource, type of science challenged (data about resources, science relevant to potential impacts, methods for analyzing potential impacts, and mitigation actions), and specific nature of the challenge (e.g., challenging direct effects analysis). We identified priority science needs based on the frequency of challenges, the number of states where similar challenges occurred, whether the BLM lost the challenge, and whether the case was remanded. Top needs related to oil and gas development actions and included science about effects on air quality and climate, water, and socioeconomics; data for air quality and climate; and methods for analyzing potential impacts to cultural resources and air quality and climate. The BLM can use this information to prioritize actions (e.g., funding new research or science syntheses) to strengthen its science foundation for decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The public is beginning to recognize the true impacts of ocean noise on marine mammal behavior. In particular, the shipping industry, consisting of thousands of large vessels and tankers, contributes significant noise pollution by emitting loud, constant, droning, low-frequency sounds. The scientific literature has revealed the importance of reducing these noise impacts to ensure the survival of numerous depleted marine mammal populations. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act, the current legal regime is capable of addressing noise impacts from shipping activities, but these laws have not yet been utilized to regulate the industry. Despite the apparent ability to treat shipping noise as a “take” under the MMPA and ESA, NOAA Fisheries has not taken regulatory actions to enforce those take prohibitions against the shipping industry. While the availability of the MMPA and NEPA as tools for enforcement through litigation depend on the existence of a federal agency action, the ESA can be enforced directly against shipping vessels that disturb marine mammals through noise production. This paper proposes that legal action against shipping companies under the ESA for a “take” through ocean noise could force the federal government to initiate enforcement of the shipping industry under its delegated authority. Alternative advocacy positions exist as well, including lobbying Congress to add a citizen suit provision to the MMPA or enact a new statute requiring certain vessel design standards intended to reduce noise output. However, given the modern Congressional gridlock, ESA litigation appears to be the most viable strategy available to advance the regulation of shipping noise.

This article aims to show how the changes to NEPA by the Trump Administration are an act of environmental racism, defined as "[i]ntentional or unintentional racial discrimination in environmental policy‐making, enforcement of regulations and laws, and targeting of communities for the disposal of toxic waste and siting of polluting industries." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Comparative analysis of environmental federalism approaches to EIA policy. • Detailed legislative and regulatory evolution in all four case studies. • Lessons learned and policy reforms for EIA in Brazil, Paraná, US, and California. The literature on environmental impact assessments (EIA) tends to focus on national case studies, while neglecting subnational EIA systems. Federalist countries represent 40 % of the world's population and by their design link national and subnational governments in institutional arrangements that delineate or share power across administrative and sectorial areas. Therefore, the study of institutional arrangements' influence on the conduct of environmental policy such as EIA is important in evaluating its effectiveness. This research aims to contribute to this area by examining the national and subnational EIA systems in two federalist countries, Paraná, Brazil and California, United States (US). This involved a literature review of the scientific and grey literature as well as legislation and regulations of each case study. This analysis was organized along operational, legislative, administrative, and procedural characteristics building upon existing methods from the EIA literature. The results show each federal country presents different approaches to EIA policy. Brazil represents a more centralized top-down approach based on a licensing system, which offers broader coverage of projects and in theory more standardized implementation. In the case of Paraná, there has been a recent shift towards decentralizing the EIA process for smaller projects to municipalities, although there remain institutional and technical challenges. The US EIA system covers only public projects and therefore is considerably limited in its coverage. California presents the most institutionally and technically competent EIA system of those compared in this study. However, it still suffers from problems of inconsistent implementation and litigation abuse. All case studies are facing increasing political pressures to streamline their processes, often with the proposal of arbitrary timelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acting with No Regret: A Twenty-Five Year Retrospective of Marsh v. Oregon Natural Resources Defense Council

In this article, we respond to a critique of our earlier work examining the USDA Forest Service's (USFS's) planning processes. We appreciate that our critics introduce new data to the discussion of USFS planning. Further data integration is a promising path to developing a deeper understanding of agency activities. Our critics' analysis largely supports our original claims. Our most important difference is in our conceptualization of the planning process's relationship to agency goals. Although our critics conceive of the USFS's legally prescribed planning processes as a barrier to land management activities, we believe that public comment periods, scientific analysis, and land management activities are tools the agency uses to achieve its goals of managing land in the public interest. Study Implications: The USDA Forest Service's current planning process has been critiqued as a barrier to accomplishing land management activities, but it is also an important tool for insuring science-based management and understanding public values and interests that the agency is legally bound to uphold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was enacted in 1970 as a federal law tasked with reducing man made impacts on the environment through more informed federal decision making. NEPA documents are a critical tool used by federal agencies to aid in the decision making process when presented with a major proposed action that is likely to have an environmental impact. These documents provide an extensive amount of information that includes everything from the socioeconomic factors to the physical and biological environment where a proposed action will take place. The current infrastructure for handling these documents is extremely dated, and a recent effort to modernize their accessibility leaves much to be desired. A mandatory public comment period is required for all Environmental Impact Statements (EISs); however the lack of easy access to these documents can inhibit the potential of this process. This project investigates the potential development of a geospatial NEPA database for the marine environment in an effort to create a more user-friendly and publicly accessible platform. Suggested changes to the existing NEPA document requirements are described. These recommendations are designed to aid in enabling the use of a geographic information system (GIS). In order to demonstrate the potential benefits of a geospatial NEPA database, this project identified and mapped over 30 NEPA documents with project areas within the United States West Coast and Alaska Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) using ESRI ArcGIS 10 software.

Objectives: Toxic pollutants leaching from littered cigarette butts (CB) raise environmental impact concerns. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is required to assess the environmental impacts of its tobacco regulatory actions per the US National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Methods: We determined the chemical constituents in CB leachate through analyses of 109 field-collected CB and literature compilation and characterized their ecotoxicity to aquatic organisms. Results: One-third of the 98 identified CB leachate chemicals were very toxic and 10% were toxic to aquatic organisms due to acute and chronic toxicity. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, metals, phthalates, nicotine and volatile organic compounds were the most hazardous CB leachate chemicals for aquatic organisms. Of the 98 CB leachate chemicals, 25 are included in FDA's list of harmful or potentially harmful constituents in tobacco products and tobacco smoke. Conclusions: Our study quantifies CB leachate constituents, characterizes their ecological hazard and identifies chemicals of concern. Thus, it aids in evaluating the environmental impacts of tobacco products per NEPA requirements. These results provide important information for strategies to prevent and reduce Cb litter (eg, awareness programs, litter laws enforcement), thereby reducing environmental hazards from CB toxicants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is to encourage “productive and enjoyable harmony” between humans and their environment, and to encourage wise, i.e., sustainable, decisions. The CEQ implementing regulations require early involvement to “insure planning and decisions reflect environmental values; avoid delays later in the process; and head off potential conflicts.” Additional benefits of early involvement as well as the consequences and symptoms of late involvement are discussed. Based upon EPA Region 10’s experience, the attributes of early involvement are outreach; integration of land use planning, transportation planning, and environmental review; revised/standardized guidance for elements of the NEPA EIS process and other topics; programmatic procedures for legal compliance where appropriate; advance planning for compensatory habitat mitigation; and adoption of an Environmental Management System for construction, operation, and maintenance of transportation infrastructure. The Oregon “Collaborative Environmental and Transportation Agreement on Streamlining” (CETAS) process is highlighted as an example that embodies all six attributes.

The purpose of Executive Order (EO) 13807 "Establishing Discipline and Accountability in the Environmental Review and Permitting Process for Infrastructure" is to support the timely processing of federal environmental reviews and agency authorization decisions for proposed major infrastructure projects. In addition to outlining the goal of completing all environmental reviews in an average of two years, EO 13807 stipulates that all federal authorization decisions, including issuing permits, shall be completed within 90 days of the issuance of a ROD. If environmental reviews and authorizations under other federal laws are not effectively coordinated, meeting the requirements outlined in EO 13807 will be difficult, if not impossible. This review examines how to effectively coordinate planning and permitting under the National Environmental Policy Act and three other federal laws, compliance with which is commonly needed for major infrastructure projects – the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]