Sustainable Land Development Today - February 2009 - (Page 11)

economic development and environmental protection. In attempts to create such a balance, Senate Interior and Insular Affairs chairman Henry M. Jackson introduced bill S 1075 in 1969, which eventually passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming support. On January 1, 1970 President Nixon signed the bill into the federal law that is better known today as The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. NEPA was the world’s first national declaration of environmental policy, outlining both the normative and operational requirements of an environmental review process before any governmental action could take place. Since its passage, more than 100 countries have adopted national policy similar to NEPA, which to this day is still heralded as the Magna Carta of environmental legislation. Furthermore, when comparing language from NEPA with Bundtland’s definition of SD, it can easily be argued that the American environmental movement of the late 1960s is the progenitor of the contemporary global sustainability movement: “…development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland Commission, 1987). “…to create and maintain conditions under which man and nature can exist in productive harmony, and fulfill the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations of Americans” (NEPA, 1969). However, NEPA was met with strong resistance within the United States. While no one actually advocated ecological degradation, the prevailing goal of NEPA opposition groups was to slow the pace of federally mandated policies requiring additional capital investments. These concerns came to a litigious fruition. In 2005, the House Task Force on Updating NEPA concluded that the threat of litigation by interest groups had a profound effect on the manner in which Federal agencies implemented the review process, with agencies spending as much as necessary to create “bullet proof” documents. For example, during the 1980s, an environmental impact statement (EIS) for a mining project cost approximately $250,000 to $300,000. In 2005, the same EIS could cost $7 million to $8 million. Ultimately, the increased costs were “associated with the amount of information required to address potential litigation.” NEPA has become more of a costly procedural requirement than the far- reaching tool for cultural change it was intended to be. Nonetheless, the international community took the lead in using the environmental review process of NEPA by keeping it out of the courts. In the end, the international community focused more on the normative aspects of NEPA that were left out of the American process and molded NEPA in a way that eventually brought sustainability to the Introducing Mud Mats A NEW revolutionary product to keep you out of the mud! EASY TO DEPLOY ALTERNATIVE TO ROCK ENTRANCES PROTECTING TURF SITE ACCESS For more information about Mud Mats please email us at: MudMats@brockwhite.com www.brockwhite.com Circle 199 • or www.SLDTonline.com/webcard www.SLDTonline.com 11 http://www.brockwhite.com http://www.brockwhite.com http://www.SLDTonline.com/webcard http://www.SLDTonline.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Sustainable Land Development Today - February 2009

Sustainable Land Development Today - February 2009 Contents Our Voice Modern Flood Disasters Origin of the Sustainability Movement SLDI in Focus Calendar Build Smart Product Innovation Takeoff and Cost Management Industry News Products & Services Advertiser Index Editorial Board SLDT Resources Last Word

Sustainable Land Development Today - February 2009

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.