History Snippet: Fairfax on NEPA 1978

There’s much (potential for) change bubbling away in the NEPA-sphere, but like improving various aspects of the Forest Service, these ideas and concerns have been in the air for awhile.  Here’s a letter in Science from Sally Fairfax in 1978 (yes, almost 50 years ago…). P.S. If you have a copy of her paper on RPA and the Forest Service, or know how to contact her, please let me know.

6 thoughts on “History Snippet: Fairfax on NEPA 1978”

  1. Here’s a paper with some of Fairfax’s best critical thinking on NEPA from way-back: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.199.4330.743

    Full-disclosure : I taught a graduate course on NEPA at USU for a few years and worked in the USFS WO’s detached Fort Collins office for quite some time, often dealing with NEPA and public participation or collaboration. I think NEPA is, to paraphrase Churchill on democracy, the worst form of planning aside from all others that have been tried from time to time. Many of the opportunities it offers have been poorly tried, yet many of the foibles embedded have been given much oxygen.

    That said, throwing it aside during this moment seems hardly a recipe for progress. Even the best ideas from the past seem unlikely to receive much consideration.

    Reply
    • I don’t see it as “throwing NEPA aside”, more like looking at the statute, figuring out what worked with past regulations and what didn’t, and maybe starting over. The permitting reform bros I’m in touch with have certainly do pay attention to ideas from the past. Now, whether they have influence.. not so sure. But I wouldn’t assume that the folks involved are unfamiliar with how NEPA is working and ideas for improvement.

      Reply
  2. Here are Dr. Fairfax comments:

    ……which I identified as “questionable assumptions” underlying all the claims of the virtues of the NEPA process. First, the assumption that environmentally unsound decisions are the result of a bureaucratic system that fails because administrators lack information and do not want to make sound decisions: and second, the assumption that the public and the courts are capable of identifying environmentally correct decision or forcing the agencies to do so. If these are acceptable as assumptions underlying the EIS process, then the whole enterprise is in doubt…………..

    They hit at the root of the problems with NEPA.

    I was working on timber sale for a consulting firm in 1974 and the California Forest Practices Act has just passed. The timber harvest plan had questions like “Are there T&E species on the timber sale? What are you going to do about that??. Are there archaeological sites on the timber sale? What are you going to do about that? ”

    I found it a remarkable and easy process that clearly addressed the issues at hand. NEPA needs to be that simple.

    In 1978, I was tasked by the Forest Service to write the management plan for the St. Joe Wild and Scenic River. The EIS took ten years to complete because of public controversy over classification.

    When I started the management plan, there was no requirement to prepare ANOTHER EIS on the management plan.

    As I started the writing of the plan I wrote 10 handwritten pages on the “guts” of the management plan for folks to review. I was pretty verbose. The Planning Staff wrote a letter to Senator Church that summarized the management plan in TWO pages.

    The final plan was over 130 pages, and it was NOT a EIS.

    It took me a little over a year to complete the plan working about 30% of my time on it. The plan was in effect for over 40 years. A remarkable return on a planning document.

    NEPA has failed.

    It is very expensive, and the quality of the final decision has gotten worse not better. It forces mediocre decisions through endless repetitive analysis process.

    Just before I retired a Federal judge thought 70 horses supporting five outfitters for four months in the 500,000 acre Pasayten Wilderness was a MAJOR Federal environmental decision requiring a EIS.

    Under NEPA, the first of its kind drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, also known at the Deepwater Horizon (remember the BP oil spill) was a 26 page FONZI under NEPA.

    NEPA is a total failure when it comes to disclosing the effects of our activities on the environment.

    Reply
  3. I think “NEPA has failed” is a bit of an overstatement. It should be evaluated against NEPA’s purpose:

    “SEC. 2. The purposes of this Act are: To declare a national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment; to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare or man; to enrich the understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the Nation; and to establish a Council on Environmental Quality.”

    Yeah, maybe it’s sometimes fallen short on that. It’s also fair to ask whether achieving a legislative purpose is costing too much. But I’ve always seen the bottom line of NEPA (and the EIS) to be §102, which requires all agencies to “ensure that presently unquantified environmental amenities and values may be given appropriate consideration in decisionmaking.” Are they being given too much consideration?

    Reply

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