POPULATION AND THE “EIS”

• Joseph J. Brecher
• May 1, 1991
• Forum Papers
• Forum Paper
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POPULATION AND THE “EIS”
An NPG Forum Paper
by Joseph J. Brecher
May 1991

Population was the first issue to be mentioned in the “Declaration of National Environmental Policy” (Title I of NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.) And yet, when it came time to draft the regulations to enforce that law, population was inexplicably demoted to an indirect or ‘secondary’ impact. Because of that change of focus, population has seldom figured in the environmental impact statements (or EIS) that were mandated by NEPA.

The population aspect of a decision is frequently the aspect with the most profound implications, even when that impact was not an intended result. The interstate highway system provides an example. Because of NEPA, EIS have regularly been prepared for construction of those highways. They have dealt usually with such issues as the filling of a wetland. The completion of each section has, however, usually had much vaster ramifications. It changes the economy of its area — not just because of the cluster of motels and service stations at the interchanges — but because industries and populations come with the Interstate, like Brazilian peasants following a new logging road. That effect is more or less predictable, and it is just such effects that the EIS should examine.

The environmental community is coming to understand the fundamental connection between population change and ecological impacts. As a rough rule of thumb, it is fair to say that — at any given level of consumption and technology — the environmental impact of any activity is roughly proportional to the population being served.

Recognizing the connection, eighteen of the principal environmental groups in the country, in a concerted “Blueprint for the Environment” delivered in late 1988 to President-elect Bush, called for the Council on Environmental Quality to amend its regulations to provide ‘for the consideration of population growth and other socio-economic impacts of federal programs and actions.” (Recommendation EOP- 18)

It is time to get on with that proposal. It is hard to imagine any other single change in U.S.Government regulations that would do so much to force the nation to look at the population implications of what it is doing, and to consider how induced population change might affect the quality of life in specific places and times. Armed with such analysis, the “NIMBYs” of the nation — the local groups fighting uncontrolled growth in their own backyards — would have a powerful new tool to deal with policy makers.

With this thought in mind, we asked Joseph Brecher to provide us with a brief as to the legal justification for another concerted effort at persuading the government to change its regulations so as to do what the law told it to do, in the first place. Mr. Brecher is an attorney in private practice in Oakland CA, specializing in environmental law. Before establishing his practice in 1975, he worked for the Native American Rights Fund.

We hope that organizations trying to deal with the chaotic by-products of population-associated growth will find the brief of use and will consider acting upon it.

— Lindsey Grant, Editor

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