Interstate Environmental Impact Assessment

Abstract

This article proposes a new state-based policy, interstate environmental impact assessment, that builds on the National Environmental Policy Act’s Environmental Impact Statement process to address interstate environmental harms. Interstate environmental harms, which occur when decisions or actions in one state produce negative environmental impacts in another state, have challenged American environmental law for over a century. Interstate environmental impact assessment would provide a procedural mechanism for an affected state and its citizens to influence the source state and minimize or prevent interstate environmental harms. The process itself would address the underlying problems of inadequate information, public process bias, and traditional economic externalities, and also produce information to improve federal adjudication and regulation when disputes arise over continuing harms.

Keywords: environmental impact assessment