Should The United States Role In The Establishment Of Environmental Impact Assessment Policy

The 21st century has empowered environmentalist, governments, and international organization to placed high focus on environmental health and safety management thus, prioritizing the concept of environmental management so as to confront our current environmental challenges globally. In so doing, the United States has played a leading role in the establishment of Environmental Impact Assessment policy (EIA) policy framework which is centered on a transparent procedure anticipated to provide policymaker with environmental planning as well as the inclusion of public participation that analyses the negative and positive environmental impact of a proposed investment or project that seek to protect the environment and circumvent environmental deprivation.

Such process has given the United States lead over other nations because it had benefited from immensely from such policy before other nations decided on adopting an environmental impact assessment policy globally. For most part, since the establishment of the EIA framework, it has evaluated large public investments in areas many sectors of the economy including mining, agriculture, forestry and fracking thus associating it with economic cost-benefit analysis. This process encourages public participation while at the same time revealing and addressing prospective environmental problems that are anticipated at the applicable

The act have appear in developing countries through legislation and international effort to promote sustainable development. The EIA has proven itself to be a major pillar for environmental protection. It encourages public participation that allow environmentalist and society to monitor and tracks changes in the environment al management. The framework enable scientist and expert to provide public inputs on the potential impacts of a project as well prioritize and find alternative solutions for the environmental impacts associated with such project. Nanda and Pring author of International Environmental Law and policy for the 21st Century recognized the importance of EIA, together they explain “an EIA is participatory, in that the government is expected to make it public and to seek the involvement and input of the public, developers, investors, regulators, planners, citizens, local communities, NGOS, IGO, and other affected government entities (Nanada and Pring 185, 2014). This concept had led to numerous debate associated with environmental management in the 21st century, I believe that the EIA would have played a major role in alleviating any concerns that the U.S. Senate may have in ratifying these international conventions. The EIA provides environmental impacts of human activities associated with investment and