Environmental Law: Natural Resources

Natural Resources Law Spring 2018                                                                                                  Assignment#1 NEPA

The goal of this assignment is to help you learn more about the substance of the National Environmental Policy Act as well build a familiarity with NEPA documents and online resources. To meet these goals, you will be reviewing five different NEPA documents, visiting online submissions portals, and engaging in other NEPA research.

First, the documents you will be reviewing are:

• Final Environmental Impact Statement from 1971 regarding the building of Teton Dam (circulated by email),
• Draft Environmental Impact Statement from 2018 regarding the building of a campus for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health,
• Draft Environmental Assessment governing wildlife management in South Dakota,
• Notice of Intent to prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement regarding off-shore drilling, and
• Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement regarding a pipeline project.

Some of these are long documents and you are not expected to read them in depth. Instead, read them to understand the nature of the environmental review and parts of the document. You should be able to answer these questions regarding the documents: Who is the Action Agency? What is the proposed agency action? What stage of the NEPA process are we at? What stage comes next? What are the major sections of the documents (e.g., Background, Mitigation, Comments)? What do the documents have in common? What is different?

Before Class: In preparing outside of class for this assignment, familiarize yourself with these documents at a basic level. You should have thought about the questions listed above and be ready to answer those questions or related inquiries. Visit regulations.gov and poke around.

In Class: I have placed you into teams of 3 or 4. I will give each team a sheet of questions to answers or tasks to complete regarding NEPA. During the class period, you will work with your teammates on these tasks. You will need at least one laptop per team. I recommend, however, at least two so you can both work on typing up your answers and researching at the same time. Your document will be due via email by the end of class. You are welcome to leave the classroom to work elsewhere, but I will remain in the classroom to answer questions. Each group received one grade. After you submit your assignment, I will send you a short form where you do peer review for your teammate. On that form, I will ask you whether all team members contributed equally and similar inquiries.

Teams:

TEAM ONE: David, Brendan, Jordan

TEAM TWO: Hillary, Elise, Matt

TEAM THREE: Colin, Alex, Jessie, Eric

TEAM FOUR: Tristan, Tim, Kristen, Genevievetetondameis