The Seven Deadly Sins of NEPA

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There are seven deadly sins associated with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Any one of these seven misdeeds derail your infrastructure development program in terms of both schedule and budget. Perhaps worse, a transgression can distract your ‘A’ team into months or years of procedural purgatory.

Good decision making and disciplined execution in these seven categories will greatly reduce uncertainty:

1. Purpose and Need;

2. Notification;

3. Proper Project Boundaries;

4. Secondary & Cumulative Impacts;

5. Environmental Justice;

6. Need for Mitigation (EA vs. EIS); and

7. Technical Assumptions/Models.

NEPA is a flexible law that gives federal agencies considerable discretion in its implementation. While there are procedures for the overarching NEPA process, each federal agency has specific regulations, procedures, and policies that govern each agency-specific NEPA process. This creates both risks and opportunities for practitioners.

Through working with major programs and projects in such sectors as highways, ports, aviation, water & wastewater, military bases, and forestry/agriculture, getting the NEPA process right from the beginning is essential for success. Knowing how to do it is just as important as knowing what to do. And forging a structured, disciplined approach coupled with an effective communication program is an important part of the ‘how to do it’.

The seven deadly sins of NEPA should be included in every infrastructure program’s risk register whenever public environmental documentation is required.

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JD Solomon Inc. provides solutions for program development, asset management, and facilitation at the nexus of facilities, infrastructure, and the environment. Subscribe for monthly updates related to our firm.

Five Great Workshops

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These five great workshops can be presented in half-day and full-day formats. All of these workshops have been presented in a variety of corporate and professional conference settings.

Continuing Education Units or Professional Development Hours can be provided to attendees depending on certification/license requirements.

Contact JD Solomon Inc. for more details.

Climbing and Dying On the (Risk Analysis) Mountain

Risk analysts are trusted advisors who are usually not the decision maker. In the quest to be right – to have the ‘best” results – risk analysts have a propensity to climb and die on the risk analysis mountain. They lose perspective that decision making is usually an impure, technically flawed process that often does not require the ‘best’ risk analysis.

The risk analysis mountain is an alluring place. Dating to biblical times, oracles and prophets have climbed mountains for inspiration, clarity and righteousness. The mountain provides mental and physical elevation from the masses of confused people down on the plains.

The trouble that all prophets have found is that life happens on the plains. So does decision making.

Establishing the context is the first step in a risk analysis framework. Risk evaluation and risk treatment happen on the other side of risk analysis. These latter steps represent the trade-offs, choices and decisions. Establishing the context, risk evaluation, and risk treatment happen on the plains. Risk analysis is the mountain range that separates the context and the decision making.

Decision making should dictate our approach to risk analysis. Sometimes it is necessary to climb the tallest risk analysis mountain. Other times, perhaps most times, it suffices to simply climb and cross a pass in the risk analysis mountain chain. In some cases, we can simply bypass the mountain chain altogether – after all, there are simply some things that a decision maker will not do, regardless of the risk analysis.

Think about the risk analysis mountain in the entire context of the risk management framework. While an alluring place of inspiration, clarity, and righteousness, it is not the place of the decision maker. Being relevant to the decision maker does not require climbing the tallest peak. There is limited practical usefulness in dying on the (risk analysis) mountain.

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