Approved by the Energy, Environment, and Water Policy Committee On December 20, 2023
Approved by the Public Policy and Practice Committee on June 5, 2024
Adopted by the Board of Direction on July 18, 2024

Policy

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) encourages the planning, development, retrofitting, operations, and decommissioning of safe, resilient, and sustainable infrastructure. Additionally, ASCE supports forward-thinking environmental regulations that protect the environment from damage for current and future generations. More specifically, ASCE supports:

  • The primary purpose and goals of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) based on the best available science.
  • Balanced approach to the NEPA process characterized by quality science, objective determinations of potential project impacts on the environment, and streamlining the permitting and approval process for infrastructure projects. 
  • Reducing delays in the permitting process for infrastructure projects, helping our nation achieve infrastructure appropriate for the 21st century.

Issue

Beginning in the 1950s and through the 1960s, Congress reacted to increasing public concern regarding the impact human activity could have on the environment. A key legislative option to address these concerns was through a national environmental policy. Advocates of this approach argued that without a specific policy, federal agencies were not able or inclined to consider the environmental impacts their action would have. On January 1, 1970 President Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) into law. The primary purpose and goal of NEPA as established by Congress to encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment; to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man; [and] to enrich the understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the Nation.

Multiple court cases have surrounded NEPA, its interpretation, and its application since its inception. These court cases answered questions of procedure (how, when, and why a NEPA document must be prepared) and how environmental policy goals in NEPA should be implemented or enforced. Courts ultimately decided that NEPA is a procedural statute that requires agencies to consider the environmental impacts of their proposed action and inform the public that the federal agencies considered environmental concerns in their decision-making process. The way NEPA has been implemented make it an umbrella statute, or a framework to coordinate or demonstrate compliance with studies, reviews, or consultations required by other laws.

Responding to complaints that NEPA documents take too long to write and review, delaying or permanently cancelling important infrastructure projects, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) has continued to overhaul NEPA through various actions. Most recently, CEQ proposed a second phase of revisions to their implementing regulations which incorporated an ongoing overall, as well as necessary, changes due to the Fiscal Responsibility Act. Changes include streamlining measures such as the designation of a lead agency or joint lead agency for streamlining schedules and creating page limits and deadlines for Environmental Impact Statements. The new proposed rule also proposes new forms and means of adopting categorical exclusions (CEs), including through joint establishment with other agencies.

Rationale

ASCE recognizes civil engineers are charged with informing, educating, and engaging the public about proposed policies, plans, designs, projects, and programs which require timely and appropriate public involvement. Furthermore, ASCE recognizes the need for streamlining the NEPA process; however, these streamlined processes should not comprise effective and complete determinations of a project’s potential impacts to the environment. The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) Act and the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act of 2015 included several NEPA reforms. Additionally, the federal government should continue to work with states to eliminate duplicative reviews, while the Council on Environmental Quality should examine how other environmental rating tools can be used to complement the NEPA process.

ASCE recognizes mandated, abbreviated, NEPA document completion timeframes can result in environmental evaluations that may not identify all potential impacts, both positive and negative, and might also result in an inability to allow in-depth public involvement for engagement and the development of draft documents. The potential to overlook impacts might lead to litigation resulting in extensive project delays and bring other projects in early planning phases to premature termination. While mandating maximum NEPA document lengths is important to developing succinct and high-quality NEPA documents that, as stated in NEPA, “concentrate on the issues that are truly relevant to the action in question” it is equally important to ensure that documents contain sufficient information to meet all applicable requirements and address the potential impacts of a proposed action. NEPA documents should be clear, concise, and focused NEPA documents, and that they are readable and understandable for the general public and most importantly to the people being directly impacted by the proposed action.  Through clear, concise, focused, and understandable NEPA documents there will be less time needed for decision-makers to review them and also result in NEPA documents that allow the public to quickly find the information they need.

ASCE Policy Statement 562
First Approved 2021