**FEDERAL TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION **

**OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD **

**for **

**EXCELLENCE IN ENVIRONMENTAL DOCUMENT PREPARATION **

The statement has become a boon for consultants who chum them out
according to formulas as if they were SUVs on an assembly line. The
environmental impact statement report for major projects like the Hudson
Yards Plan is about as understandable to the lay person as a doctoral
dissertationoncivilengineering.Readonandyou\'llwonderwhetherthe . loss
of tree\~to produce all that paper is worth the environmental benefit of
the rep0l1. Many people who deal with the environmental impact
statement-including community activists, planners and
developers-recognize that after three decades it is time to review
environmental review.

Angotti, \"Rethinking Environmental Impact Statements,\" Gotham Gazette
(July 2004), available at
http://www.gothamgazette.comlarticle//20040720/12/1042

**What is this initiative about? **

There is a growing awareness among the public, as well as legislators
and the bureaucracy at all levels of government, that environmental
impact statements, which have grown over the years to become bloated,
non-analytical documents often exceeding 1,000 pages in length, are no
longer serving their intended purpose. As a consequence, some agencies,
including the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), are re-examining
their guidance and practices with a view toward dramatically improving
the quality of environmental documentation. The fundamental purposes and
principles of efficient, effective Federal impact statement preparation,
set forth in regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy
Act (NEPA) and related guidance, have been in place for nearl y three
decades. 1

1In a 1977 executive order, the Council on Environmental Quality was
directed to issue regulations implementing the procedural provisions of
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The NEPA implementing
regulations were to \"be designed to make the environmental impact
statement process more useful to decisionmakers and the public; and to
reduce paperwork and the accumulation of extraneous background data, in
order to emphasize the need to focus on real environmental issues and
alternatives. They will require impact statements to be concise, clear,
and to the point, and supported by evidence that agencies have made the
necessary environmental analyses,\" Executive Order 11991 of May
24,1977.

The NEPA implementing regulations establish reasonable quantitative and
qualitative targets for environmental document preparation. In addition
to specifying a standard format of study topics, the regulations also
provide that the text of environmental impact statements should normally
be less than 150pages. Qualitatively, the regulations call for
preparation of \"analytic rather than encyclopedic\" documents. The
regulations stress the need for environmental impact statements to focus
on important issues and altematives­considerations that are truly useful
to decisionmakers and the public-and to reduce sharply the emphasis on
background material and insignificant issues; to achieve these
objectives, a system of simplifying procedural techniques that may be
readily employed by any agency was incorporated into the regulations.

But for all the apparent compliance by Federal agencies with the
regulations, NEPA

documents have tended to remain exceptionally long on pointless
\"detail,\" as well as a

continual source of delays in the administrative process. To illustrate
the point, a recent Council on Environmental Quality NEPA Task Force
Report acknowledged that contemporary environmental impact statements
can contain more than 2,000 pages, require more than six years to
complete, and cost \$2 million to prepare.2 There are many sources of
present-day disharmony between impact statements and the regulations,
including fear of litigation that often leads document preparers and
reviewers to address in detail every conceivable environmental issue,
irrespective of significance, as well as many issues unrelated to
environmental quality. Regardless, it is clear, as one former chairman
of the Council on Environmental Quality observed, that achieving NEPA\'s
full potential \"will not require lengthier documents containing greater
detail or a more protracted process; quite the contrary.\',3

2 A1;an extreme example, the Department of Energy\'s fmal environmental
impact statement for the

superconducting supercollider project, years in the making-not 12
months, as the Council on Environmental Quality suggests-and later
supplemented, was about 8,000 pages in length. The 26 pound,
multivolumedocumentwasmailed\"duringtheholidayseasonof
1988andincludedaddresseeswhohadnot even requested copies. Just to print
and mail the document cost approximately \$1.4 million. U.S. General
Accounting Office, *Information Dissemination: Cost of Mailing
Environmental Impact Statement for Super ColliderNo. GAOIGGD-89-104
*(July 1989).

3 Council on Environmental Quality, *Summary of the Proceedings of a
Workshop on NEPA Integration: Effective, Efficient Environmental
Compliance in the 1990s *i (Remarks of Chairman Michael R. Deland,
December 1991).

The impact statement was required to force the agencies to take the
substantive provisions of the Act seriously, and to consider the
environmental policy directives of the Congress in the formulation of
agency plans and procedures. To the extent that agencies have built the
criteria specified in section 101 into their assumptions and policies
and have utilized the planning procedures indicated in section 102(2)(A)
and (B), the impact statement need be no more than a summary of agency
action. Acknowledging exceptions, it may be generalized that impact
statements of great length and detail indicate programs or projects of
dubious

environmental merit.

Lynton K. Caldwell, Special Assistant to the Senate Committee on
Interior

and Insular Affairs on the drafting of NEPA

Environmental impact statements are not the only NEPA documents that
suffer excesses; environmental assessments are similarly burdened. The
NEPA implementing regulations state that an environmental assessment is
supposed to be a \"concise public document\" that serves to
*\"\[b\]riefly *provide sufficient evidence and analysis for determining
whether to prepare an environmental impact statement or a finding of no
significant impact\" (emphasis supplied). According to the Council on
Environmental Quality, environmental assessments should generally be no
more than 10 to 15 pages in length and take no longer than three months
to prepare. Yet, the Council on Environmental Quality NEPA Task Force
Report confirmed that so-called \"large environmental assessments\" may
contain more than 200 pages, require up to 18 months to complete, and
cost \$200 thousand to prepare. In most respects, contemporary
environmental assessments resemble what environmental impact statements
are supposed to look like, according to

the NEPA implementing regulations.

CEQ regulations are usually not the cause of EA delays and additional
cost. Instead, compliance with an agency\'s internal NEPA or other
environmental guidance requires additional time and expense.

\*\*\*

Few agencies take the minimum approach described in existing CEQ
regulations; instead they produce EAs that are much longer than
suggested. Some agencies that the task force interviewed and public
comments received stated that EAs are similar to EISs in size, cost, and
scope.

The NEPA Task Force Report to the Council on Environmental Quality,
\"Modernizing NEPA Implementation\" 66 (September 2003)

In an effort to return to the fundamentals of efficient environmental
document preparation, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has taken
several steps, including redesigning its \"Managing the Environmental
Process\" course, offered through the National Transit Institute, to
emphasize sound document-preparation practices. FfA has also updated
relevant guidance, including sample documents, on various aspects of
impact statement preparation. The award contemplated in this
announcement represents yet another way in which FTA hopes to encourage
efficient preparation of more usefulenvironmental documentation.

A number of other agencies have undertaken similar initiatives. The
Federal Highway Administration has also issued valuable guidance on
document preparation; that guidance may be accessed at

\<httD://www.environment.trans

I believe the original intent of the law has been lost. Agencies
routinely produce enormous and convoluted documents. In most cases, the
amount of complex data makes the document so confusing that it can\'t
even be read and understood. This undermines the intent of having a
document the general public can read, understand and provide meaningful
feedback on. NEPA is not supposed to be a process by which every blade
of grass is micromanaged on the ground.

Statement of Eric G. La Price, submitted to the Task Force on Improving
the National EnvironmentalPolicy Act and the Task Force on Updating the
National Environmental Policy Act of the House Committee on Resources,
available at http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/nepataskforce.htm

**Is there a new paradigm? **

There is no new paradigm. The regulations and guidance currently in
place are sufficient, if followed, to achieve the executive order\'s
objectives-to reduce paperwork and the accumulation of extraneous
background data, in order to emphasize the need to focus on

real environmental issues and alternatives.

**What are the major impact statement preparation problems? **

Scoping helps insure that real problems are identified early and
properly studied; that issues that are of no concern do not consume time
and effort; that the draft statement when first made public is balanced
and thorough; and that the delays occasioned by re-doing an inadequate
draft are avoided.

President\'s Council on Environmental Quality

Impact statement preparation problems arise principally as a result of
deficiencies in the \"scoping\" process. NEPA \"scoping\" (40 c.F.R. §
1501.7)has specific and fairly limited objectives, one of which is to
identify the significant issues associated with alternatives that will
be examined in detail in the document, while simultaneously limiting
consideration and development of issues that are not truly significant.
It is in the NEPA scoping process that potentially significant
environmental impacts-those that give rise to the need to prepare an
environmental impact statement-should be identified; impacts that are
deemed not to be significant need not be developed extensively in the
context of the impact statement, thereby keeping the statement focused
on environmental impacts of

consequence.

A deficient scoping process will almost always lead to document
preparation problems,

including reinforcing a tendency on the part of document preparers to
add needlessly to

the length of documents and to confuse readers by

. addressing every conceivable area of impact that could be associated
with projects

whether or not involved in the project under study; if an environmental
value-historic

resources, for example-is not involved, then there is no need to develop
(basically target

and explain away) the issue in the context of the document;

. developing exhaustively every aspect of every negative impact that may
be generated by the proposed action in an effort to satisfy the
requirement that impact statements identify \"adverse\" environmental
effects which cannot be avoided should the proposed action be
implemented; impacts to the quality of the human environment deemed not
to be significant, but are sufficiently adverse to warrant attention and
are not otherwise mitigated, may be noted (projects may also generate
environmental benefits which should be highlighted, as well-an impact
statement should draw attention to positive impacts, not just negative
impacts);

. burdening impact statements with a considerable amount of extraneous
descriptive

language; and

. duplicating discussions in different sections of impact statements.

Some other generally unobserved requirements and considerations that
contribute to a

much less useful impact statement are highlighted below.

The NEPA implementing regulations require that environmental impact
statements \"be

written in plain language.\" The regulations also encourage the use of
\"appropriate

graphics.\" Agencies are expected to employ writers of clear prose,
which is extremely

important if documents are going to be meaningful to decisionmakers and
the public.

In relating impacts of consequence, document preparers often use highly
technical and

scientific terminology, including equations and symbols that the public
cannot

comprehend. Results of technical analyses should be related to the
public in

understandable terms. For example, document preparers should not explain
noise levels

in terms of dBA, Ldn,and Leq;rather noise levels should he related in
terms of an event

with which the public may be familiar, such as standing 10 feet from an
idling gasoline-powered lawn mower.

It is important to note methodologies employed in arriving at
conclusions involving scientific inquiries. But discussion of
methodologies and technical terminology should be relegated to an
appendix of the document.

Acronyms are the language of the bureaucracy and abound in the transit
business. But acronyms are like a foreign language to the public;
documents that contain a wealth of acronyms tend to discourage readers
who are forced constantly to refer back to glossaries

of terms in order to understand the writing. Document preparers should
be considerate of readers and avoid excessive use of acronyms in NEPA
documents.

For the most part the NEPA implementing regulations and guidance are
directed at the environmental impact statement process, not the
environmental assessment process. But the same principles that are
followed to reduce paperwork and delay in the environmental impact
statement process apply equally to the environmental assessment process.
The Council on Environmental Quality has published guidance on
environmental assessment preparation; that guidance is available at

environmental assessments.Ddf

**Why recognize outstanding achievement in document preparation? **

As long as the basic requirements of the NEPA process are observed,
there is no penalty for preparing bloated, non-analytical impact
statements that the public and decisionmakers can understand, if at all,
only with great difficulty. And poorly written impact statements are
seldom singled out for criticism, although courts have on occasion
remanded documents in part for failure to be written in plain language.
Nevertheless, as the Council on Environmental Quality observed more than
a decade ago, \"There is need

formorereadableNEPAdocuments.,,4 .

There are few disincentives for preparing environmental documents that
do not serve

their intended purpose. But disincentives are not always the most
effective means of

achieving a desired result. Environmental documents that comport with
document

preparation expectations and achieve the objective of paperwork
reduction deserve more

than passing reference; they should be formally recognized and showcased
as examples

of effective, efficient environmental documentation. Suitable
recognition will enhance

the reputations of sponsors and consultants who are so recognized and
will serve to

encourage others to follow suit, all to the benefit of the public and
agency

decisionmakers. It is for these reasons that the Federal Transit
Administration is establishing an outstanding achievement award for
excellence in environmental document preparation.

**What are the award criteria and filing requirements? **

Submissions-environmental impact statements and environmental
assessments-will be evaluated based on three criteria, each having equal
value for judging purposes:

\(1\) Content-does the document satisfy the content requirements of the
NEPA implementing regulations and relevant guidance?

4 Council on Environmental Quality, *SummaryoftheProceedingsofa
WorkshoponNEPAIntegration: Effective, Efficient Environmental Compliance
in the 1990s *8 (December 1991).

-   \(2\) Utility-has the document been designed to be truly useful to
    the public and\
    decisionmakers?

-   \(3\) Practicality-have procedural techniques to reduce paperwork
    and delay (see 40

C.F.R. §§ 1500.4 and 1500.5, appended to this document) been effectively
employed?

Documents, limited to one-whether an environmental impact statement
(draft or final) or an environmental assessment-annually for any
sponsor, should be submitted, together with a cover letter explaining
how and the extent to which each criterion was met for the document, to
the planning director of the region in which the sponsor is located for
initial screening. Following initial screening, documents will be
forwarded to headquarters for judging.

The filing deadline for documents and accompanying explanations (to the
regional

planning director) is

Who will judge entries?

Entries will be judged by a panel of experts comprised of
representatives, as available, from among the following organizations:

Federal Transit Administration, Office of Planning and Environment

The President\'s Council on Environmental Quality or the United States
Environmental Protection Agency

The United States Department of the Interior

The Environmental Law Institute

The American Public Transportation Association

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
Center for EnvironmentalExcellence

A university student of urban planning

With whom may I speak if I have questions or need additional
information?

Questions and requests for additional informationshould be directed to

Julie Atkins

Office of Planning and Environment Federal Transit Administration
Telephone: (202) 366-4491

E-mail: julie.atkins@dot.gov