Environmental Policy

Report Outline
Midpoint in the Environmental Decade
National Policy Making and Enforcement
Future Implications of Environmental Law
Special Focus

Midpoint in the Environmental Decade

Assessment of Environmental Act After 5 Years

Five Years Ago, on New Year's Day 1970, the National Environmental Policy Act (PL 91–190) was signed into law. It was a brief document, as federal laws go, only five pages long. But its purpose was broad: “To declare a national policy which will 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; to enrich the understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the nation; and to establish a Council on Environmental Quality.”

President Nixon made the signing ceremony his first official act of the new decade, saying that “the 1970s absolutely must be the years when America pays its debt to the past by reclaiming the purity of its air, its waters, and our living environment. It is literally now or never.” Nixon concluded his remarks by saying: “We are determined that the decade of the Seventies will be known as the time when this country regained a productive harmony between man and nature.”

In the five years since the enactment of this law, commonly known as Nepa, it has proved to be perhaps the most powerful and far-reaching environmental legislation ever passed. It is considered the cornerstone of other environmental measures of the 1970s. Its strong provisions and their interpretation by the courts have forced federal agencies to incorporate environmental factors into the decision-making process. It has firmly established the concept of environmental impact assessment by requiring federal agencies to prepare statements explaining how proposed actions might affect the quality of the environment.