ABSTRACT
Many conflicts over large-scale infrastructure projects took place in the late 1960s and 1970s as citizens became more concerned with environmental damage and demanded greater input into government decisionmaking. The 1969 National Environmental Policy Act mandated environmental impact assessments for large government-led projects and gave citizens broad administrative and legal powers to challenge and influence government decisionmaking. Increasingly, citizens confronted—and confounded—government bureaucracies whose traditions were based on the construction of power plants, dams, highways, and other large-scale projects.
