New study finds federal agencies must improve climate impact analysis to meet NEPA requirements

New study finds federal agencies must improve climate impact analysis to meet NEPA requirements

Federal agencies do not adequately consider the effects of climate change in their reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a new study finds.

that report, Assessing Climate Risks in NEPA Reviews: Current Practices and Proposed Reformstoday by Columbia Law School’s Sabine Center for Climate Change Law and Environmental Protection Fund.

“Climate change poses significant risks to energy infrastructure across the U.S. that federal agencies must consider when conducting environmental reviews of energy projects under the National Environmental Policy Act, but this typically does not occur,” said an associate researcher at Columbia Law School Scholar Romany Weber said the Sabine Center’s School and Senior Fellow. “Our research shows that many agencies are failing to consider how projects will be affected by climate change and what this means for their environmental outcomes. Agencies may therefore underestimate the environmental impact of energy projects and sanction no climate adaptation A changing project.”

“Climate change is a serious and growing danger. Rigorous climate impact analysis is necessary to protect all Americans and achieve NEPA’s core objective of informing federal agencies and the public about the environmental impacts of proposed actions,” Environmental Protection Fund Climate Risk said Michael Penfair, chief advisor and director of strategy.

To meet NEPA’s requirement for federal agencies to “take a hard look” at the environmental impacts of proposed actions, agencies must consider how changing weather and environmental conditions brought on by climate change could affect an action and alter its environmental effects, the new report found. However, none of the 65 environmental impact statements the agency issued between 2016 and 2020 related to onshore energy activities contained a sufficiently comprehensive, specific and actionable climate impact analysis to inform agency decision-making.

To bridge the gap between NEPA’s requirements and the agency’s current practice, the report recommends:

• The Council on Environmental Quality should update its NEPA Implementing Regulations to explicitly require climate impact analysis and should identify best practices for this analysis when updating its climate guidelines.
• Other federal agencies should update their NEPA regulations and practices to ensure robust climate impact analysis.
• The Environmental Quality Council should coordinate among federal agencies and relevant experts and create or support the creation of a database of climate impact information.

You can Read the full report here and Read the executive summary here.