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Show i New Council on Environmental Quality EPA directives By Helene C. Monberg Vashington Aware that the public is st , up with the lengthy time it takes an "jncy to comply with the National vironmental Protection Act (NEPA) luirements, the Council on En-onmental En-onmental Quality (CEA) will soon . . : out some new pointers to shorten jjj: process. Oi'.TSQ would like to issue its new tlective in the form of 40 basic stions and answers before Jan. 20, j.en the Reagan Administration takes et.'ice. It may be one of the last major lu'.asions carried out by CEQ as sently set up. the 'CEQ is a part of the Office of the gisident, and he can mold it as he sees pj" a CEQ spokesman told Western e "sources Wrap-up (WRW) on Dec. 30. lii widely believed here that Mr. tjagan will tend to downgrade the i) portance of CEQ, which was initially Stablished to carry out NEPA. 9, 2Che whole purpose of the new U-'ective will be for the environmental lflpact statments (EIS) and the Uironmental impact assessments to ,11 ess the highlighting of alternatives li jhe construction of a project, such as ,2; dam or power plant. One of the i,i;ernatives might be no construction ie. all according to C. Foster Knight, Tit Q's acting general counsel. The alternatives section in an EIS is .!U very heart of the EIS. It is also the irt of NEPA. The lead agency should Concentrate on that. All too often Eitimcies figure it will take some two irs or 18 months to do an EIS. A edcfectly adequate EIS stressing the Im portant environmental issues raised a project can be completed in six nths. We seek to encourage that," tA1ight told WRW on Dec. 30. (Altther points that the new directive I0J stress will be to start considering STtrironmental impacts of a project ly in the NEPA process, to avoid is ylication, to avoid disputes between ubl 1 among agencies when possible, to out measures that may be taken to agate the impact of a project, and jjp'.erwise to improve the quality of the ,5 to improve the level of en- ,"1ronmental decision-making. die ietiEPA was passed by Congress in 04.and, signed, into, law by President,.,... jjjion on Jan. 1, 1970. Among its ... 1jje visions is the requirement that an ! be prepared on legislation and Dger major federal actions which lificantly affect the quality of the nan environment. An environmental essment is prepared for less im- ,tant actions. an. I While an EIS must be prepared on portant activities in the private SStor which require some form of )roval by a federal agency, NEPA vs not impose direct obligations on .se outside the federal government," sAQ explained in an assessment it did -egulations which went into effect on J v. 29, 1978 to upgrade CEQ's i delines to regulations under an ; icutive order issued by Mr. Carter on I y 24, 1977. I 'he new CEQ regs became operative I July 30, 1979. They were designed to ! Tdinate the NEPA effort, so that all i sncies would write EIS's under one 1 of rules, thereby improving the end . i 'duct and speeding up the NEPA J 'cess. EQ was itself quite critical of the 1 y that federal agencies were im-menting im-menting NEPA. It said: "Federal mJ mcies implementing NEPA have terated excess paperwork, produced tecessary delays and duplicated ir efforts under the statute. As a ult, scarce federal resources have in unproductively spent and private ' .licants needlessly inconvenienced. lally important, public confidence he process has been undermined." Tie "regs" were supposed to im-ve im-ve and speed up the process, and the v directive is likewise expected to do by claryfying various parts of the 8 regs. Will they ? That remains to be n. paperwork. But Lee Rogers, deputy assistant secretary in the Army for public works, a former attorney with the National Wildlife Federation, questioned a policy that the Corps put into effect about 10 years ago on the evaluation of permit applications for structures to be built in mineral lease areas on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The Corps' policy has been to limit "its review of such applications to impacts on navigation and national security only," it explained in its proposed rules. There is some question whether the Corps legally can so limit its jurisdiction in the OCS applications, it went on, even tho the final authority to grant a lease in such areas is up to the Interior Department. "If the Corps' jurisdiction is determined to be broader to encompass other public interest factors in addition to navigation and national security then the Corps would be interested iri the possibility of entering into a memorandum of agreement with the Interior Department (DOI) with a view to avoid the duplication and delay that would result were both DOI and the Corps to conduct a full public interest reviews.. .The Corps solicits public comments on each of these jurisdictional jurisdic-tional and policy questions," it stated in the Federal Register. If the decision is made that the Corps' jurisdiction is broader than it has construed it in the past, the result will be a longer per- . mitting process in OCS areas, even tho the OCS is a major contributor to the nation's energy supply. NEW LAWS TO BE IMPLEMENTED SPELL DELAY Rural Electrification Administrator Robert W. Feragen told WRW on Dec. 22, "In our negotiations with CEQ, we have found it hard to hold our own." Largely because of new laws to be implemented, it's hard to prevent current delays from getting longer, he said. Costs associated with environmental en-vironmental laws and regulations and other federal administrative actions "constitute approximately 20-25 percent per-cent of the cost to the consumer of new electric power projects," Feragen told the House Appropriations Committee at the 1981 budget hearings last March. Among the environmental laws imposing environmental requirements which have largely been put into regulations to date include the 1964 Wilderness Act, the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the 1974 Forest & Rangeland Renewable Resources Act, the 1976 National Forest Management Act, the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act, as well as the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, the Endangered En-dangered Species Act, and floodplains and wetland executive orders. All have added to "the complexity and compliance com-pliance cost" of rural cooperatives that plan to build power plants or transmission tran-smission lines, Feragen told the Committee, in addition to NEPA. "There is another group of requirements that have been mandated which are now only in the formative stages of implementation. The Toxic Substances Control Act and visibility standards under the Clean Air Act are examples. I would also include in this group of changing environmental limitations the continuous additions of species to threatened or endangered (species) status, listing of new historically significant and protected sites and the designation of more wilderness areas, national parks and monuments and wild and scenic rivers," Feragen stated. "Looming over the horizon are still further environmental constraints that are being advocated by various constituencies. con-stituencies. We see the possibility of new legislation and regulations in the |
