- Item# N20
- ISBN: 978-0-923956-67-7
- Copyright (c) 2001
- Paperback
- Price: $75.00
The NEPA Book
A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Comply with the National Environmental Protection Act
By Ronald Bass , Albert Herson and Kenneth Bogdan
A practitioner's handbook that takes you through the critical steps, basic requirements, and most important decision points of the National Environmental Policy Act. With short articles, practice tips, tables, illustrations, charts, and sources of additional information. Formerly called Mastering NEPA: A Step-by-Step Approach.
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The NEPA BOOK |
In addition to the information
provided below you may also: |
| CHAPTERS
AT A GLANCE |
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ABOUT THE BOOK |
| Ideal for environmental specialists, agency reviewers and decision makers,
attorneys, consultants, students, and citizens who want to effectively
influence environmental decisions that shape their communities. Formerly
called Mastering NEPA: A Step-by-Step Approach.
This new edition includes:
The NEPA Book will help you:
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS |
| The authors are employed by Jones & Stokes,
a consulting firm providing services in environmental planning and natural
resources management with offices throughout the western United States. NEPA
compliance has been an important component of Jones & Stokes' business
since its founding in 1970. Messrs. Bass, Herson, and Bogdan also are the
authors of the award-winning CEQA Deskbook: A Step-by-Step Guide on How to
Comply with the California Environmental Quality Act. In addition, Messrs.
Bogdan and Herson are co-authors of the nationally recognized Wetland Regulations:
A Complete Guide to Federal and California Programs. Ronald E. Bass, JD, AICP, a Planner and Environmental Counsel for Jones & Stokes, is recognized internationally as an authority on environmental impact assessment. Mr. Bass regularly teaches academic and professional courses on NEPA, CEQA, and land use planning and has written numerous books and articles about EIS and other planning topics. Albert I. Herson, JD, FAICP, is Senior Vice President and Environmental Counsel for Jones & Stokes. Mr. Herson specializes in helping public and private businesses, agencies, and organizations comply with NEPA, CEQA, wetlands regulations, and endangered species laws. He regularly teaches workshops on environmental compliance. Kenneth M. Bogdan, JD, is Environmental Counsel for Jones & Stokes. He specializes in compliance issues related to environmental laws and regulations, including Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, federal and state endangered species acts, NEPA, and CEQA. Mr. Bogdan regularly teaches and speaks at workshops and conferences on wetlands, endangered species, CEQA, and NEPA. |
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PREFACE |
| Signed into law in 1970, the National Environmental Policy Act is one of
the nation's oldest, most important, and far-reaching environmental laws.
NEPA applies to all federal agencies and most of the activities they
approve or carry out. It sets forth the nation's environmental policy,
requires federal agencies to consider and disclose the environmental
impacts of their proposed actions, and encourages them to make
environmentally responsible decisions. NEPA also spawned many individual
state environmental impact assessment laws, called mini-NEPAs, and an
international environmental impact assessment movement that continues to
grow.
Specifically, NEPA requires federal agencies to prepare Environmental Assessments or Environmental Impact Statements prior to making decisions. The President's Council on Environmental Quality, referred to as CEQ, which was established along with NEPA, has adopted regulations and other guidance that provide general procedures for federal agencies to follow when preparing these documents. Moreover, each federal agency has adopted its own detailed NEPA procedures, and the federal courts, after more than 30 years of litigation, have played a major role in shaping NEPA's interpretation and implementation. The NEPA Book: A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Comply with the National Environmental Policy Act is a comprehensive, user-friendly guide to NEPA. It integrates NEPA's requirements, CEQ NEPA Regulations, and case law with the authors' practical approaches and recommendations on how to implement the statute successfully. Since it is written for those who prepare, review, and use NEPA documents, the book is especially useful for federal agency NEPA staff and decision makers, consultants, state and local agency staff reviewing NEPA documents, citizens and interest groups wishing to influence the process, and NEPA trainers. It is a user's handbook. The NEPA Book is not a comprehensive legal reference and does not offer legal advice. Coverage of case law is limited to those NEPA cases that have had the greatest influence on implementation of the law. The legal citations in this book are not exhaustive, but refer primarily to the law itself, the CEQ NEPA Regulations, and CEQ's other guidance on NEPA implementation. For detailed legal treatment, readers should consult additional NEPA publications listed in Further Reading at the end of this book. The authors wrote Mastering NEPA, the first edition of this book, in the early 1990s, while conducting NEPA training workshops for governmental, private sector, and nonprofit clients. In the course of the training, workshop participants suggested that Mastering NEPA be published as a comprehensive, objective, legally accurate workbook reference that could be used long after the training was done. This second edition, now called The NEPA Book, greatly expands the information presented in Mastering NEPA, and reflects the most recent case law, changes in agency practices and procedures, and current trends in NEPA compliance. The book also includes new case studies and recommendations for improving implementation along with several entirely new chapters covering key developments in the 1990s, including:
The authors of The NEPA Book have devoted their careers to implementing NEPA and state mini-NEPA laws. We have been inspired to do this through helping our clients meet the challenges of environmental compliance and through interactions with thousands of NEPA and mini-NEPA practitioners while leading training courses and giving professional conference presentations. Through decades of experience, we remain encouraged about NEPA's consistent ability to improve environmental quality by improving federal agency decision making, interagency coordination, and public disclosure. We have also learned from the many practical frustrations and ambiguities that can arise in implementing this complex yet flexible law. Throughout The NEPA Book, we have identified many of these potential pitfalls and have suggested solutions. We hope that the book will inspire our fellow practitioners and others interested in NEPA to join us on our quest to implement the law with energy, excellence, and creativity. |