Agencies' Revised NEPA Procedural Compliance Guidelines Published in ELR

This month ELR publishes the procedural compliance guidelines prepared by federal agencies to guide their implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). See Statutory and Administrative Materials, Table of Contents, at ELR 40000. These guidelines were prepared pursuant to Executive Order 11514, ELR 45003, and Guidelines issued by the Council on Environmental Quality on April 23, 1971, ELR 46049. In many instances they replace or update procedural guidelines issued by these agencies pursuant to CEQ's Interim Guidelines of April 30, 1970, 1 ELR 46001, although some of the federal sub-agencies which have now issued formal procedural guidelines for the implementation of NEPA had not done so previously.

Not all agency NEPA procedural compliance guidelines are published in this issue of ELR. Some agency guidelines were not available for publication prior to ELR's press deadline. Moreover, there are still some agencies which have not yet adopted procedural guidelines, although the deadline for their submission to CEQ was September 15, 1971. See Comment, 1 ELR 10167.

In mid-November, 1971, ELR conducted a survey of more than 50 federal agencies and sub-agencies for which CEQ had recommended formal procedural compliance guidelines be adopted. The list of agencies published at 1 ELR 10168-9 includes all agencies which CEQ feels should have prepared guidelines. These omitted agency guidelines will be published by ELR as they become available.

ELR's December 1971 Comment discussed at length the reasons for delay in agency modification of NEPA procedural guidelines. Increasingly stringent judicial interpretation of the requirements of the Act was cited as one of these reasons, and several judicial decisions which embody these judicial views were briefly discussed. Since December, 1971, ELR has published four court decisions which have very significant implications for the legal adequacy of the procedural guidelines of many agencies. See Greene County Planning Board v. Federal Power Commission, 2 ELR 20017 (2nd Cir. Jan. 17, 1972); Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. Morton, 2 ELR 20029 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 13, 1972); Izaak Walton League of America v. Schlesinger, 2 ELR 20039 (D.D.C. Dec. 17, 1971); Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 2 ELR 20044 (E.D. Tenn. Jan. 11, 1972).