Accordig to the LA Times, the Nation­al Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy Act Is ‘at a Cross­roads’:

NEPA is fac­ing strong chal­lenges from the Bush admin­is­tra­tion, Con­gress and busi­ness inter­ests who say the law has been hold­ing up progress on a num­ber of fronts, among them build­ing high­ways, pre­vent­ing for­est fires and drilling for oil and gas in the Rocky Mountains.

The House ver­sion of the pend­ing ener­gy bill would exempt many oil and gas explo­ration projects from NEPA review. And a con­gres­sion­al com­mit­tee is hold­ing pub­lic hear­ings with the stat­ed inten­tion of chang­ing how the law works. To expe­dite a wide range of projects, the admin­is­tra­tion and law­mak­ers have exempt­ed some cat­e­gories of fed­er­al actions from NEPA assess­ments or lim­it­ed their scope.

…

The three-page statute, known as the Magna Car­ta of envi­ron­men­tal law, required the gov­ern­ment for the first time to involve the pub­lic in deci­sions that could harm nat­ur­al sur­round­ings or dis­turb neigh­bor­hoods. The law has been imi­tat­ed by oth­er coun­tries and many states.

…

For the first time, the law guar­an­teed the pub­lic infor­ma­tion and a forum on many mat­ters direct­ly affect­ing their lives. “It affects the air they breathe, the water they drink, their recre­ation­al resources and the views they enjoy,” said Lucy Swartz, a for­mer gov­ern­ment lawyer who now serves on the board of the Nation­al Assn. of Envi­ron­men­tal Professionals.

How­ev­er, those call­ing for changes to NEPA say the law has made it far too easy for envi­ron­men­tal­ists and oth­ers to mount legal chal­lenges over tech­ni­cal­i­ties. “It has been used as a stick in the spokes of the wheels of progress,” said Russ Brooks, an attor­ney for the prop­er­ty rights-ori­ent­ed Pacif­ic Legal Foundation.

Ed Abbey once wrote that “Growth for the sake of growth is the ide­ol­o­gy of a can­cer cell.” It’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly an awful thing if growth is mod­er­at­ed to ensure that soci­ety’s needs aren’t harmed by pre­cip­i­tous action. One can see how use­ful NEPA is by review­ing the records at NEPAblog.