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The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) established a National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Task Force to review the current
NEPA implementing practices and procedures in the following areas:
technology and information management and security; federal and
intergovernmental collaboration; programmatic analyses and subsequent
tiered documents; and adaptive management and monitoring. In addition,
the Modernizing NEPA Task Force reviewed other NEPA implementation
issues such as the level of detail included in agencies' procedures
and documentation for promulgating categorical exclusions; the
structure and documentation of environmental assessments; and
implementation practices that would benefit other agencies. CEQ
Memorandum (04/10/2002)
This
website describes the work of the Task Force established by CEQ
to address modernizing the implementation of NEPA to make the
NEPA process more effective, efficient and timely. Other organizations
and groups are also examing the National Environmental Policy
Act and some have provided websites with information about their
separate but related efforts. Two government groups and their
websites are the National
Environmental Conflict Resolution Advisory Committee chartered
by the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution and
the U.S.
House of Representatives NEPA Task Force.
CEQ envisions the information gained and disseminated by the
NEPA Task Force will help federal agencies update their practices
and procedures and better integrate NEPA into federal agency decision
making. The Modernizing NEPA Task Force prepared a report with
recommendations to CEQ regarding potential guidance and potential
regulatory changes based upon the information collected. In addition,
a Compendium of Useful Practices
highlighting case studies and useful practices used to facilitate
more effective NEPA implementation was prepared and will be supplemented
in the future.
The NEPA Task Force report Modernizing
NEPA Implementation was presented to CEQ (Memorandum
09/24/2003). The CEQ then hosted several public roundtables
to raise awareness of the recommendations and hear from the public
and NEPA experts on which of the recommendations should be implemented
and how they should, if at all, be modified. CEQ received reports
from each of the roundtables as well as a final report synthesizing
the input from the four roundtables and the public, these reports
are located at the Regional Roundtables.
CEQ considered and is now implementing a first round of recommendations
based on the input provided by the Task Force, the expert roundtables,
and the public.
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