A multitude of factors can affect the timing of federal project delivery. Factors that may contribute to delays in a federal project include changes in the planning and design process, changes in funding priorities, construction complexities, local controversy or community opposition to a project, and compliance with myriad local, state, tribal or federal laws. With regard to the latter, certain federal actions such as highway construction projects and permitting for mining operations, cattle grazing, forest thinning, and energy development projects may trigger compliance with literally dozens of statutory and regulatory requirements. These, in turn, may require the participation or input of possibly dozens of local, state, tribal, or federal agencies. In recent years, the time it takes to comply with various environmental laws has been the subject of public scrutiny and debate in Congress. One law that has been the subject of particular scrutiny has been the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA; 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321-4347). Signed into law by President Nixon on January 1, 1970, NEPA declared a national policy to protect the environment and created a Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in the Executive Office of the President. To implement the national policy, NEPA requires that environmental factors be considered when federal agencies make decisions and that a detailed statement of environmental impacts be prepared for all major federal actions significantly affecting the human environment. The "detailed statement" referenced in the law is now known as an environmental impact statement (EIS). CEQ regulations for implementing NEPA, among other provisions, introduced additional levels of environmental review—those for environmental assessments (EAs) and categorical exclusions. Generally, EAs are prepared to determine whether the impacts of a federal action will be "significant" under NEPA. An action is categorically excluded from the requirement to prepare an EIS or an EA if it is of a type or in a category known to have no significant environmental impacts. (For more detail on these requirements, see the discussion regarding " The NEPA Process " in the following section of this report; also see CRS Report RS20621, Overview of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Requirements , by [author name scrubbed], and CRS Report RL33152, The National Environmental Policy Act: Background and Implementation , by [author name scrubbed].) The preparation of EISs is probably the best-known requirement of NEPA. However, projects requiring an EIS represent a small fraction of all federal actions. For example, from 1986 to 2006, an average of 255 final EISs were filed with EPA each year. By comparison, in 1997, CEQ reported that federal agencies estimated that approximately 50,000 EAs were prepared annually. Determining the total number of federal actions subject to NEPA is difficult, as most agencies track only the number of actions requiring an EIS. One agency that tracks all its projects is the Department of Transportation's (DOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). In 2005, FHWA reported that just over 84% of all highway projects were classified as categorical exclusions (representing just over 81.5% of FHWA project funding), 9% required an EA (5.5% of project funding), and approximately 7% required an EIS (13% of project funding). Although they may be small in number compared with all federal actions, projects requiring an EIS often include those with the greatest impacts and highest stakeholder interest. Stakeholders such as state and local project sponsors and industry representatives with an interest in the implementation of federal actions charge that meeting NEPA's environmental review requirements is sometimes done inefficiently and can be overly time-consuming. Such critics charge that the law creates a complicated array of regulations and logistical delays that stall agency action. Environmental organizations look at the NEPA process as an essential tool to help agencies plan and manage federal actions in a responsible way by requiring policymakers and project sponsors to consider the environmental implications of their actions before decisions are made. They also view the NEPA process as an important mechanism to provide the public with an opportunity to be involved in agency planning efforts. They argue that expediting what is supposed to be a deliberative process is not necessarily in the best interest of the public or the environment. Further, they argue that blaming the environmental compliance process for project delays is misplaced. They contend that if federal projects are, in fact, delayed by the NEPA process, it is because agencies required to participate in the process are overburdened and insufficiently funded, staffed, or equipped to meet the demand. As a result of the debate between stakeholders regarding NEPA's implementation, numerous administrative and legislative actions have been proposed to expedite compliance with NEPA. The activities associated with such proposals are often collectively referred to as streamlining . No regulatory or legislative definition of streamlining exists. It is defined differently by different stakeholders or agencies for different classes of projects. However, the term is often used to describe a process or procedures intended to accelerate decision making, especially when the input of multiple federal, state, tribal, or local agencies is required to comply with multiple environmental laws, regulations, or executive orders. For example, FHWA may propose a highway construction project that affects wetlands that are home to an endangered species. Within the context of conducting a review of the environmental impacts of the project under NEPA, FHWA may also be required to demonstrate compliance with elements of the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. As a result, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service would have statutory obligations to participate in the proposed project. These agencies, with potentially conflicting missions (e.g., protecting endangered species or sensitive wetlands versus building a highway), are then required to work together to review various aspects of FHWA's proposed project. Streamlining efforts may be implemented with the intent of expediting the requirement of having these agencies work together. Many of the issues leading to a call for streamlining, as well as challenges to implementing such actions, are summed up in the following excerpt from a report issued by the National Conference of State Legislatures: Regulators often lack guidance on how to successfully integrate the complicated requirements of state and federal environmental laws and regulations.... Depending on the complexity of the issue and the priority given the issue by decision makers, decisions can be slow in coming, thus delaying progress. Another barrier is the fact that individual regulators tend to be experts in only one set of laws and regulations. This tends to create some resistance to proposals that coordinate or integrate the provisions of different laws. Regulators tend to be cautious about integrating the requirements of different laws unless they can define all possible regulatory and technical impacts. This statement recognizes that barriers to efficient decision making arise not from NEPA alone, but from the challenges of integrating compliance with a multitude of laws and regulations that may apply to a given federal action. NEPA has been interpreted by the courts to be a procedural statute with two primary aims. First, it obligates federal agencies to consider every significant aspect of the environmental impact of an action before proceeding with it. Second, it ensures that the agency will inform the public that it has indeed considered environmental concerns in its decision-making process. In this capacity, NEPA has become one of the primary mechanisms through which the public is able to participate in the federal decision-making process. As a procedural statute, the courts have ruled that NEPA does not require agencies to elevate environmental concerns above others. Instead, NEPA requires only that the agency assess the environmental consequences of an action and its alternatives before proceeding. If the adverse environmental effects of the proposed action are adequately identified and evaluated, the agency is not constrained by NEPA from deciding that other benefits outweigh the environmental costs and moving forward with the action. NEPA is a declaration of policy with action-forcing provisions, not a regulatory statute comparable to other environmental laws intended to protect air, water, wetlands, or endangered species. It establishes the basic framework for integrating environmental considerations into federal decision making. However, the law itself does not provide many details on how this process should be accomplished. For example, although NEPA gave CEQ a variety of duties, the authority to promulgate regulations implementing NEPA's environmental review requirements was not one. That authority was ultimately given to CEQ by executive order in 1977, but it did not include authority to enforce those regulations. A major impetus for CEQ's regulations was to reduce the time and paperwork required to prepare an EIS. The CEQ regulations were intended to be generic in nature. Each federal agency was required to develop its own NEPA procedures that would be specific to typical classes of actions undertaken by that agency. Separately, CEQ regulations directed federal agencies to review their existing policies, procedures, and regulations to ensure that they were in full compliance with the intent of NEPA. Section 102(2)(C) of NEPA requires that all federal decisions include in "every recommendation or report on proposals for legislation and other major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment, a detailed statement by the responsible official on the environmental impact of the proposed action." The "detailed statement" is now referred to as an environmental impact statement (EIS). Projects for which it is not initially clear whether impacts will be significant require the preparation of an environmental assessment (EA). If, at any time during the EA preparation, it is determined that a project's impacts will be significant, an EIS must be prepared. However, if in preparing the EA the agency determines that the project will have no significant environmental impact, a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) will be issued by the lead agency. The FONSI must briefly present the reasons why the project will not have a significant effect on the environment. If a project is of a type or in a category known to have no significant environmental impacts, it is categorically excluded from the requirement to prepare and EA or EIS.