Environmental Policy Act, National

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the first major U.S. environmental law, was enacted in 1969 and signed into law in 1970. NEPA requires all federal agencies to go through a formal process before taking any action anticipated to have substantial impact on the environment. Part of this process requires the agencies to assess the potential environmental impact of their proposed actions in accordance with NEPA policy goals and to consider reasonable alternatives to those actions. Primary responsibility for overseeing implementation of NEPA rests with the Council for Environmental Quality (CEQ), created by the U.S. Congress as part of NEPA and located in the Executive Office of the President. The scope of NEPA is limited to agencies of the federal government (i.e., it does not ...