Decision Making in the Environmental Impact Assessment Process

He conducts compliance inspections at facilities handling radioactive materials, sites that may have impacts on the human and physical environments. He recently completed the Technical Communication and Rhetoric Doctor of Philosophy degree program at Texas Tech University. His research interests include rhetorical analysis of environmental reports. Making a decision is like standing at the proverbial fork in the road. One cannot stand still, one cannot take both forks, and one cannot be sure in advance which fork will prove to be the right path. Frans H. van Eemeren et al. Introduction This essay analyzes the decision-making processes used by government agencies to approve or reject projects that have significant impacts on the environment. One may believe that an agency will use a well-defined procedural process for making decisions, but in reality, various internal and external factors have greater influences over the decision maker. This essay examines some of the real-life inputs into the decision-making process and analyzes the results of three agency decisions that affected the environment. To begin with, I will describe some of the basic requirements for decision making as provided in the implementing regulations for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). I will also discuss several academic observations about decision making with an emphasis on environmental assessments. I present three case studies involving different projects that were analyzed by government agencies using the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process. For each example, I provide an overview of the project and the significant issues as documented in the respective EISs. I also describe the agencies' final decisions and the reasons given for each decision. I plan to demonstrate that government agencies tend to elevate social, cultural, and political concerns over the natural environment. In addition, I plan to demonstrate that unique factors influenced the decision maker in each situation. In the next section, I describe some of the regulatory requirements for environmental decision-making. Regulatory Requirements In response to the 1960s environmental movement and several high-profile pollution incidents, the U.S. Congress passed NEPA in 1969. President Nixon signed NEPA into law on January 1, 1970. The Act created new requirements for assessing government-sponsored activities that have significant impacts on the environment. According to Diori Kreske (1996), the U.S. Congress intended for NEPA to create a balance—a productive harmony—between environmental resources and people. Decision Making in the Environmental Impact Assessment Process 2 The Act has two main goals. First, agencies have …