NEPA and Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

摘要

NEPA is an important law because it encourages federal agencies to make better decisions related to environmental impacts. To the extent that federal agencies are presented with meaningful choices regarding GHG emissions when considering proposed actions, then analysis of those emissions under NEPA should help federal decisionmaking. However, for the great majority of federal actions, the issue of GHG emissions has the potential to overwhelm NEPA analyses with information that may distract agencies from the real environmental choices before them. It is in everybody's interest that this not happen.