
16 Environmental Impact Analysis
Minor modications, not affecting the underlying purpose and need for the
programs, could have been made during planning if NEPA had been inte-
grated into the process. Similarly, the adverse impacts could have been at
least partially mitigated with plans and programs put in place to address the
unintended and unanticipated consequences such that they were not issues
for the following decades.
NEPA, and specically the EIS hard look requirement and the public input
mandate, made drastic changes to the longstanding practice of decisions
based solely on an agency’s mission and eventually in the culture ...