National Environmental Policy Act

The National Environmental Policy Act is a United States federal law enacted by Congress in December 1969 and signed by President Richard Nixon on January 1, 1970, and it is widely regarded as the foundational statute of modern American environmental law. It requires federal agencies to assess and disclose the environmental effects of proposed major actions before proceeding with them, using the environmental assessment and environmental impact statement as its principal tools, and it established the Council on Environmental Quality within the Executive Office of the President to oversee the process. The act does not itself prohibit environmentally harmful federal action but instead requires agencies to study and make public the likely environmental consequences before deciding. More than one hundred other countries have since enacted environmental review laws modeled on it.