NEPA and Hurricane Response, Recovery, and Rebuilding Efforts

Publication Date: September 2005

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Environment

Type:

Abstract:

As local, state, and federal agencies respond to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, agency officials must determine the extent to which certain environmental laws and regulatory requirements will apply to their response, recovery, and rebuilding efforts. The requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA, 42 U.S.C. Section 4321 et seq.) has drawn particular attention in the wake of the disaster.

Signed into law by President Nixon on January 1, 1970, NEPA was the first of several major environmental laws passed in the 1970s. It declared a national policy to protect the environment and created a Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in the Executive Office of the President. To implement the national policy, NEPA required that a detailed statement of environmental impacts be prepared for all major federal actions significantly affecting the environment. The "detailed statement" would ultimately be referred to as an environmental impact statement or EIS.

For many federal actions undertaken in response to an emergency or major disaster, NEPA's environmental review requirements are exempted under provisions of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (Stafford Act); the CEQ regulations also allow for "emergency alternative arrangements" of NEPA requirements. In the wake of the Katrina and Rita, congressional interest in the NEPA process has focused primarily on projects for which no exemptions or the potential for alternative arrangements exist.

Some Members of Congress have discussed the need for legislation that would provide waivers to or streamline methods of compliance with NEPA's environmental review requirements. The need for those provisions, some Members of Congress assert, originates from two areas of concern: the role that NEPA-related litigation may have played in delaying past flood-control projects (two projects, in particular, have been widely reported in the press); and NEPA's role in high energy prices caused by delays in energy development projects such as oil exploration projects and refinery permitting. Others argue that NEPA is being used as a scapegoat after the New Orleans flooding. Further, they charge that delays in energy-related projects are often unfairly attributed to NEPA, when a "delay" may represent the time it takes for multiple agencies to coordinate a response to complicated project proposals that may require compliance with multiple local, state, and federal environmental laws.

This report provides an overview of NEPA requirements relevant to the hurricanes response and recovery efforts, its application to emergency and non-emergency actions related to the disaster, NEPA's role in two past flood and hurricane control projects that have been discussed in the press, and legislative proposals that relate to the NEPA process. It will be updated as developments warrant.