Opinion ID: 314947
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: NEPA and Esthetics

Text: 31 First, we deal with esthetic questions. Primarily this has to do with the visual effect of the Facility on the users of the Beltway. 5 In particular, concern was voiced by NCPC during its successive stages of review of the project that there be landscaping of the loading and docking areas. Also the question of visual effect was partly responsible for the NCPC condition in 1971 that building be removed from the I-3 zone contiguous to the Beltway in order that this area be reserved for high quality industries on campus-like settings. 32 NEPA contemplates that esthetic considerations are part of the quality of the human environment. Section 101(b)(2) provides that it is Federal policy to assure for all Americans safe, healthful, productive, and esthetically and culturally pleasing surroundings. This language was taken from the Senate version of the Bill, in Conference, H.Rep. No. 91-765, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. 8 (1969), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1969, p. 2751. The Senate Report No. 91-296, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. 18 stated: Each individual should be assured of safe, healthful, and productive surroundings in which to live and work and should be afforded the maximum possible opportunity to derive physical, esthetic, and cultural satisfaction from his environs. And esthetics have played a part in court protection of environmental values even prior to NEPA, as appears from Scenic Hudson Preservation Conf. v. FPC, 354 F.2d 608 (2d Cir. 1965) and the court's advertence to the affected Hudson river scenery as finer than the Rhine. 33 That some, or perhaps all, environmental impacts have an esthetic facet, does not mean that all adverse esthetic impacts affect environment. That is neither good logic nor good law. Some questions of esthetics do not seem to lend themselves to the detailed analysis required under NEPA for a Sec. 102(C) impact statement. Like psychological factors they are not readily translatable into concrete measuring rods. Hanly v. Kleindienst, supra, 471 F.2d at 833 n.10. The difficulty in precisely defining what is beautiful cannot stand in the way of expressions of community choice through zoning regulation. Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26, 75 S.Ct. 98, 99 L.Ed. 27 (1954). But the difficulties have a bearing on the intention of Congress, and whether it contemplated, for example, a requirement of a detailed environmental impact statement, and concomitant investigation, because of the possiblity that each new Federal construction would be ugly to some, or even most, beholders, on such issues as: Is this proposed building beautiful? 6 Or, what is the esthetic effect of placing the controversial Picasso statute in front of the Civic Center building in Chicago? These types of problems lead us to conclude that a substantial inquiry or hard look was not contemplated, as a matter of reasonable construction of NEPA, where the claim of NEPA application is focused on alleged esthetic impact and the matters at hand pertain essentially to issues of individual and potentially diverse tastes. See Natural Resources Defense Council v. Morton, 148 U.S.App.D.C. 5, 458 F.2d 827 (1972). 34 In the instant case, the assessment of the Corps of Engineers ultimately dealt with the esthetic question by increasing the landscaping plans and budget, after it was decided that continued siting on the I-3 zone was required. Given the commitment to landscaping, to enhance the appearance of the Facility to those passing by on the Beltway, the Corps felt no further investigation of this matter was required. Given the limited scope of judicial review of such matters, our inability to discern the value or contours of further investigation, we cannot forecast as at all likely the possibility that plaintiff will prevail in showing that it was arbitrary or capricious, or contrary to the requirement of NEPA, to decline to write a detailed impact statement on the esthetic aspect of the project. 7 35