By Romany M. Webb, Michael Panfil, Stephanie H. Jones, and Dena Adler
In recent years, policymakers, practitioners, and scholars have increasingly considered how climate change should factor into existing environmental review obligations, including review of U.S. federal agency actions under the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”). Attention thus far has focused primarily on the critical question of how to account for an action’s contribution to climate change via direct, indirect, or cumulative greenhouse gas emissions. However, less focus has been given to the equally critical question of how actions will be affected by, and can prepare for, the impacts of climate change. This paper combines an extensive review of previously conducted Environmental Impact Statements (“EIS”) with an examination of the legal framework, current practices, and next steps for integrating that latter category of climate effects – what we term “climate impact analysis” – into NEPA reviews.
Read the report, Evaluating Climate Risk in NEPA Reviews: Current Practices and Recommendations for Reform, in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive