California's experience with environmental impact reports

Abstract

Many nations are still in the formative years of applying environmental impact assessment (EIA) laws to individual projects. In contrast, public agencies in the United States, and particularly in California, are regularly preparing EIAs on policies, programs and plans, as well as projects. This paper explores the legal basis for these ‘programmatic’ EIAs, explains the types of activities being evaluated with them, and comments on the approaches agencies are taking to their preparation in California. © 1990 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.