Opinion ID: 329593
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Relationship to NEPA.

Text: 62 In Lathan v. Brinegar, supra, 506 F.2d at 690-91, we held that the public hearings required by § 128 must consider not only the matters specified in that section and its implementing regulations but the factors enumerated in NEPA as well: 63 (T)he hearing under section 128(a) . . . will not be merely a new corridor or location hearing or design hearing . . . . The major focus must be on the total impact of the project as a whole, including whether it should be built at all, as well as whether, if it is to be built, it should be built where and as previously planned. 64 Id. at 690. 65 We also expressed grave doubts that adequate consideration of the factors specified in NEPA could occur in the absence of a properly detailed and documented EIS. We have similar doubts here. 66 The purpose of the hearings required by § 128 is 67 to afford full opportunity for effective public participation in the consideration of highway location and design approvals, 68 and 69 to give all interested persons an opportunity to become fully acquainted with highway proposals of concern to them. 70 23 C.F.R. §§ 790.1(a), 790.1(b). 71 How can public participation be effective or acquaintance with highway proposals full when the public is denied access to the vital environmental data and analysis which a properly detailed EIS would provide? See Lathan v. Brinegar, supra, 506 F.2d at 690-91. Section 128 requires state highway departments to certify that the social, economic and environmental effects of highway projects have been considered. Unless consider in this context means no more than speculate, how can a state highway department consider environmental effects without the aid of a detailed EIS? The environmental impacts of a project are not always obvious. Without the study and analysis which an EIS necessarily includes, the most serious environmental effects may not timely come to the attention of agency decisionmakers. This is precisely the danger which it is the purpose of NEPA and § 128 to avoid. Calvert Cliffs' Coordinating Committee v. A.E.C., supra, 449 F.2d at 1114. Thus, we think consider in this context means to investigate and analyze, not merely to speculate on the basis of information that is already available, however incomplete. 23 72 Unless consideration encompasses an affirmative duty to investigate and compile data on social, economic and environmental effects, and a further duty to incorporate that data into a detailed, reasoned analysis of the project's social, economic and environmental impact, it is difficult to understand the congressional motivation for adding to § 128 in 1970 an amendment requiring state highway departments to prepare reports indicating the consideration given social, economic and environmental effects and possible alternatives. This requirement clearly contemplates independent review by FHWA (and by the courts if necessary) of state highway department investigation and consideration of social, economic and environmental effects to determine whether the procedure required by law has been observed. Meaningful review is clearly impossible where, as in the present case, the study report contains no more than the state highway department's unsupported speculation that the project in question may, at some unspecified time in the future, have some unspecified social, economic or environmental impact. 73 In view of the above it is plain that CDHW's design study report fails to deal adequately even with the factors specified in § 128, to say nothing of the matters enumerated in NEPA. The deficiencies are set out with particularity below. Because of them, we need not consider whether the defendants' failure to file an EIS is independently sufficient to defeat compliance with § 128, as well as being in violation of NEPA. See Lathan v. Brinegar, supra, 506 F.2d at 690, 694, 695. But we stress that before the new hearings which the failure to comply with § 128 will require, the EIS which the defendants must prepare must be made available to the public so that views based on accurate and complete environmental information may be expressed by the participants in the new hearings. See id. at 691. And we reiterate what we said in Lathan: grudging Pro forma compliance with NEPA is not enough. The new EIS should include a full study and analysis of the environmental effects of the interchange itself and of the development potential that it will create. To require less would defeat the important objectives of § 128 and of NEPA. 74