Review by Choice Review
Caldwell seeks to assess the promise and impact of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), an act he had a hand in shaping as an adviser to Senator Henry Jackson. Caldwell's personal account of the act's legislative history and its sponsors' intent is the most interesting part of this volume. He argues that while the act is best noted for establishing the environmental impact assessment procedure, its real importance is that it established an overall national policy toward the environment. However, Caldwell observes that presidential disinterest, bureaucratic resistance, and judicial restraint have weakened the potential impact of NEPA's policy declarations on federal activities. Unfortunately, he does not analyze the success of antiregulatory business groups in limiting NEPA's power. The book contains little new information and lacks a consistent voice. Sometimes it is addressed to the general reader who knows little about NEPA or administrative procedure; at other times (often in the same paragraph) Caldwell speaks to the experts. This could have been an interesting essay about the difficulty of translating broad principles into actual government programs, but as a book it is repetitive and fails to place government within a larger political economic context. Upper-division undergraduates and above. R. M. Rakoff Hampshire College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
