ABSTRACT
The requirement to prepare strategic environmental assessments, known as programmatic environmental impact statements (PEISs) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), pre-dated similar mandates in other parts of the world. The reason for the early application of EIA to policies, plans and programmes (PPPs) was that no distinction was made in NEPA and its implementing regulations between project level EIA and plan level EIA. Since the early 1970s, federal agencies have been preparing PEISs on land use plans, as well as on other types of policy level and programme level decisions. Thus, there is a considerable track record of SEA preparation, particularly by the federal agencies responsible for most federal land use planning and management: the US Forest Service (USFS), the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the National Park Service (NPS), and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Together, these agencies are responsible for managing more than 260 million hectares of federal land in the US. Most of the plans they prepare are subject to NEPA and have PEISs that either accompany them or are fully integrated into them during their preparation (Bass and Herson, 1999).
