The Public Interest

The environmental-impact statement VS. the real world

Eugene Bardach & Lucian Pugliaresi

Fall 1977

ON December 30, 1974, Judge Thomas A. Flannery, of the United States District Court in Washington, D.C., issued a memorandum opinion and judgment requiring the Bureau of Land Management (B.L.M.) to prepare environmental-impact statements (EISs) on the Federal government’s livestock-grazing program. Flannerys opinion was a clear victory for the plaintiff, the Natural Resources Defense Council (N.R.D.C.), agreeing with its motion that B.L.M. should be required to examine the environmental effects of livestock grazing on specific areas of the public domain. The judge also required that N.R.D.C. and B.L.M. confer and try to agree upon a schedule for completing the EISs.

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