National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA): Writing the Perfect EA/FONSI, or EIS-JUL 12-13, 2016

This training course will present the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) practitioner with a set of practical skills for preparing either an Environmental Assessment (EA) / Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) or Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and includes all the required content, as well as practical skills for safely leaving out unnecessary content. NEPA lessons will come from various project examples. Major themes include: how to make the findings required by law; timing the NEPA process to the decision making process; eight good legal reasons not to prepare an EIS; scoping a reasonable range of alternatives; writing the “perfect” cumulative effects analysis; and administrative record. This course includes a substantial handout with graphic models, updated case lists that support the models, and sample documents. Each attendee may keep the handout to serve as a reference in the workplace.