ABSTRACT
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a rare and notable consequence of congressional initiative in response to a massive grass-roots effort by American citizens. In this chapter, the author attempts to explain and document three factors. First, his own method of assessing environmental impacts, emphasizing for the purpose "social impacts". Second, the political circumstances which prohibited the full implementation of NEPA, including the utilization of a systematic, interdisciplinary approach which insures the integrated use of the natural and social sciences in approaching environmental problems. And, that NEPA has not been fully implemented and that there is no nationally recognized science of environmental management. Anthropologists have traditionally conducted studies in urban complex societies and possess the expertise to access the impacts of environmental change on varying groups of people in both urban and rural areas.
