Poor Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) practice leads to poorly planned projects, and ultimately poor environmental protection. Written by recognized NEPA authority Charles H. Eccleston, The EIS Book: Managing and Preparing Environmental Impact Statements supplies focused direction on preparing an EIS, highlighting best professional practices (BBP) and lessons learned from case law that provide valuable direction for preparing legally defensible documents. The book is not about preparing bigger or more complicated EISs—but better ones. Beginning with fundamental topics and advancing into successively more advanced subjects, Eccleston describes EIS preparation as a comprehensive framework for planning future actions, rather than merely a document preparation procedure. He supplies direction for preparing defensible analyses that facilitate well-planned projects and improved decision-making. Discusses EIS document requirements including the Council of Environmental Quality’s NEPA regulations and related guidelines, EPA guidance and requirements, presidential executive orders, and case law Covers how to perform a legally sufficient cumulative impact assessment and how to evaluate greenhouse emissions and climate change Details a step-by-step approach for navigating the entire EIS process that includes all pertinent process requirements from issuing the notice of intent, through public scoping, to issuing the final record of decision (ROD) Includes analytical requirements for preparing the EIS analysis and guidance for performing various types of analyses Provides tools, techniques, and best professional practices for preparing the EIS and performing the analysis Presents a case study that reinforces key EIS regulatory requirements, and integrates lessons learned from this case study with appropriate regulatory requirements The book gives readers a firm grasp of the process for preparing an EIS, including all key regulatory requirements that a legally sufficient EIS document must satisfy. No other book synthesizes all such requirements and guidance into a single source for easy and rapid access.

The central concern of this book is the social intelligence that goes into environmental decisions. Not, what is the 'correct' balance when trade-offs must be made between environmental and economic values? But rather, how can the social thinking necessary for intelligent trade-offs be institutionalized? How, that is, can environmental impacts be recognized beforehand so that less costly trade-offs can be explored, relative risks assessed, and choices made in a manner acceptable to both the public and the government? This book evaluates the first ten years of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process of the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act - in particular, how it has worked inside two federal agencies with important impacts on the environment, the Forest Service and the Army Corps of Engineers. It assesses how successful the EIS process has been in establishing a concern for environmental values in the federal bureaucracy, and how widely applicable the general impact statement approach is in other policy areas.

This fully updated, full-color fourth edition of the award-winning Environmental Encyclopedia features approximately 1, 300 signed articles providing in-depth, worldwide coverage of environmental topics and issues. Articles are written in nontechnical language, providing current status and analysis, and suggesting solutions whenever possible. Entries range from 200-2, 000 words and many are accompanied by full-color images and diagrams. Multidisciplinary in scope, the Environmental Encyclopedia is the perfect resource for environmental studies and sciences classes as well as other disciplines touching on environmental issues.

This book examines the crucial role of EIA in government decision-making in Europe, the Nordic countries, North America, Asia and the Pacific.