ABSTRACT
In his book, Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain humorously described how misunderstandings of certain facts and observations can lead to incorrect, misleading, or even bizarre conclusions:
It is partly because of irrational assessments (and decisions) such as this that Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson and others believed that a scientifically based approach to planning federal actions was sorely needed. This chapter provides an overview of the three fundamental levels of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance and describes the basic principles underlying its implementation. Each of the three levels comprising this process is described individually and in more detail in subsequent chapters. For more information on the three levels of NEPA compliance, the reader is directed to the companion books, The NEPA Planning Process, Effective Environmental Assessments, and Environmental Impact Statements.1-3
Before delving into the details of NEPA, it is instructive to present a succinct overview of the entire NEPA planning process. The following section provides a simplified description of the process. It is important to note that minor variations to the description presented herein can and do exist particularly with respect to how individual agencies choose to implement specific details of their respective NEPA processes.
