Congressional Leaders: Reject Request to Waive Environmental Laws in Stimulus Bill Transp. Projects
January 13, 2009
- American Lands
January 13, 2009
The Honorable Nancy
Speaker of the House Senate Majority Leader
The Honorable James Oberstar The Honorable Barbara Boxer
Chairman, House Transportation Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment and
Re: Smart Economic Stimulus Decisions Require NEPA Compliance
Dear Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Reid, Chairman Oberstar and Chairman Boxer:
As you prepare to consider economic stimulus legislation, the undersigned organizations want to
underscore how past experience has shown that a key to good long-range development decisions is the high quality information provided via the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for projects funded
NEPA is the federal government’s guarantee that the pros and cons of, and alternative approaches to, its investments and actions will be thoughtfully considered and informed by the best available scientific and factual information. It also ensures that your constituents will be able to understand and get orderly input into stimulus decisions. Inevitably, in the course of congressional consideration, special interests will assert that we cannot afford the NEPA process in a time of national urgency. The truth is that we cannot afford that kind of leap-before-you-look rashness. We have neither the time nor the resources to waste on measures that ultimately prove to be unproductive or harmful. Our members, like the American public as a whole, want to be sure that the prudent and knowledgeable approach of NEPA is integrated into all federal stimulus projects that affect the human environment.
To help achieve this outcome, projects eligible for funding under the stimulus should have all necessary state and federal environmental reviews in hand, including NEPA and other environmental and historical resource reviews, before commencing. Among State and local government-provided projects that could be funded under the package are many “shovel ready” proposals that have already completed environmental reviews. For example, Tennessee Georgia California
Previous stimulus legislation passed by the United States House of Representatives but ultimately not enacted (HR 7110), may serve as a model for the upcoming package. While it did require projects to meet a “shovel ready” timeframe, it did not alter NEPA requirements. The same must especially be true of the forthcoming stimulus package, conceived of as a green recovery vehicle that provides us with clean energy, building retrofits to achieve greater efficiency, and mass transit.
To promote timely decision-making, an important part of the economic investment that Congress makes should be in the capacity of federal and state agencies, and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to expedite their NEPA responsibilities. Federal agencies and CEQ have in recent years lost staff and budgets needed to fulfill their NEPA roles. Supplementation of their resources would reap major benefits in having projects approved and underway quickly.
It is important that projects with potentially significant environmental impacts go through state environmental review and the NEPA process in order to ensure that the best alternatives are considered, all potential impacts are fully known, and the public can have confidence that their government is proceeding in a manner that is optimal, safe, and transparent.
Thank you for your leadership on this critical issue,
Glenn Olson
Executive Director
Audubon California
Golson@audubon.org
Warner Chabot
Chief Executive Officer
Wchabot@ecovote.org
Karen Wayland
Legislative Director
Natural Resources Defense Council
kwayland@nrdc.org
Bob Dreher
Vice President for Conservation Law
Defenders of Wildlife
BDreher@defenders.org
Michele Boyd
Director, Safe Energy Program
Physicians for Social Responsibility
mboyd@psr.org
Adam Kolton
Sr. Director, Congressional and Federal Affairs
National Wildlife Federation
Kolton@nwf.org
Mike Petersen
Executive Director
The Lands Council
mpetersen@landscouncil.org
Leslie Jones
General Counsel
The Wilderness Society
leslie_jones@tws.org
Marty Hayden
Vice President, Policy and Legislation
Earthjustice
mhayden@earthjustice.org
Dan Jacobson
Legislative Director
Environment California
djacobson@EnvironmentCalifornia.org
Pamela A. Miller
Arctic Program Director
Pam@northern.org
Randi Spivak
Executive Director
American Lands Alliance
randispivak@americanlands.org
Mike Clark
Interim Executive Director
Greenpeace
mike.clark@greenpeace.org
Bill Lee
Vice President for Government Relations
American Rivers
blee@americanrivers.org
Betsy Loyless
Senior Vice President for Policy
National Audubon Society
bloyless@audubon.org
Craig D. Obey
Senior Vice President for Government Affairs
National Parks Conservation Association
cobey@npca.org
Melva Bigelow
Director, State Government Relations
The Nature Conservancy
mbigelow@tnc.org
Elizabeth Thompson
Legislative Director
Environmental Defense Fund
EThompson@edf.org
Linda Sheehan
Executive Director
lsheehan@cacoastkeeper.org
Luke Breit
Legislative Advocate
Forests Forever
Amanda Jorgensen
Executive Director
ajorgensen@cnps.org
Wenonah Hauter
Executive Director
Food and Water Watch
Mary Lee Knecht
Executive Director
Tiernan Sittenfeld
Legislative Director
League of Conservation Voters
tiernan_sittenfeld@lcv.org
Nat Mund
Legislative Director
Southern Environmental Law Center
nmund@selcdc.org
William J. Snape, III
Senior Counsel
Center for Biological Diversity
bsnape@biologicaldiversity.org
Anna Aurilio
Director, Washington DC
Environment America
asquared@environmentamerica.org
Emily Wadhams
Vice President for Public Policy
National Trust for Historic Preservation
emily_wadhams@nthp.org
Jeanne Rizzo, R.N.
President and CEO
Breast Cancer Fund
Rico Mastrodonato
Senior Governmental Relations Manager
The Trust for Public Land
George A. Kimbrell
Staff Attorney
The Center for Food Safety
gkimbrell@icta.org
Cc.The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
The Honorable George Miller
The Honorable Henry Waxman