Jeepers, Creepers, What'd You Do to NEPA?

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The 35 year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which allows public input on environmental reviews of federal actions, "is facing strong challenges from the Bush administration, Congress and business interests who say the law has been holding up progress." The energy bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives "would exempt many oil and gas exploration projects from NEPA review." Representative Richard Pombo formed a NEPA task force that's holding public hearings, "with the stated intention of changing how the law works." NEPA "has been used as a stick in the spokes of the wheels of progress," said the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation's Russ Brooks. But law professor Bradley Karkkainen said, "the general thrust of the administration's proposals is not to produce information more efficiently but to produce less information."