Science and environmental decision making: The potential role of environmental impact assessment in the pursuit of appropriate information

Natural Resources Journal

Volumn 45, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 283-309

  DiMento, Joseph F C ^a   Ingram, Helen ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DECISION MAKING; ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT; ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION; INFORMATION;

EID: 28044467339     PISSN: 00280739     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (122)

1. Decision making over the years has been a catchall phrase for what government does that influences - even in some remote way - environmental quality. For this article we use the term quite broadly but consistent with what we develop below are the activities addressed by environmental impact assessment law.
2. Sylvia Noble Tesh, Uncertain Hazards: Environmental Activists and Scientific Proof 81-82 (2000).
3. In October 2002, the Data Quality Act became law. Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001, Pub. L. No. 106-554, 515, 114 Stat. 2763 (2000), codified at 44 U.S.C. § 3516 (2000). Passed as a little followed rider to a much larger piece of legislation, it requires government to set standards for the quality of scientific information that it disseminates. It allows citizens to challenge errors in government provided or circulated scientific results. Under the Act, the government must create procedures "ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility and integrity" of scientific information.
4. Id.
5. An interesting debate has emerged on whether the Act's prime users will be those who wish to slow down government regulation independent of concerns about science or those whose primary concerns are with quality. See Andrew C. Revkin, Law Revises Standards for Scientific Study, N.Y. Times, Mar. 21, 2002, at A30. An early study of the use of the Act found limited use, including a lawsuit seeking to stop the federal government from disseminating an assessment of global warming's impact; it was dismissed.
6. Andrew C. Revkin, National Briefing Washington: Suit on Global Warming Report Is Dismissed, N.Y. Times, Nov. 7, 2003, at A20;
7. see also James W. Conrad, Jr., The Information Quality Act: Antiregulatory Costs of Mythic Proportions?, 12 Kan. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 521, 521-48 (2003).
8. For a discussion of complexity and wicked problems in water resources, see Helen Ingram et al., Taming the Waters: Strategies to Domesticate the Wicked Problems of Water Resource Management, 3 Int'l J. Water 1 (2000).
9. For use of the term "wicked problems," see C. West Churchman, Wicked Problems, 14 Mgmt. Sci. B141, B141-42 (1967).
10. Horst W.J. Rittel & Melvin M. Webber, Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning, 4 Pol'y Sci. 155, 160-66 (1973).
11. In June 2002, the American Medical Association published an article indicating that published studies, including those undertaken with peer review, are sometimes misleading and often fail to mention weaknesses such as reporting relative reduction in risk rather than absolute reduction in risk and failing to disclose researcher ties to companies that have financed studies. Tom Jefferson et al., Measuring the Quality of Editorial Peer Review, 287 J. Am. Med. Ass'n, 2786, 2787 (2002);
12. see also Conrad, supra note 3, at 521.
13. In April 2002, the journal Nature announced it should not have published an article on contamination of Mexican native corn with genetically engineered DNA based on conflicting views of the extent to which the experimental technique of polymerase chain reaction had produced acceptable evidence of implantation of foreign genes. Carol Kaesuk Yoon, Journal Raises Doubts on Biotech Study, N.Y. Times, Apr. 5, 2002, at A21.
14. See Adam Babich, Too Much Science in Environmental Law, 28 Colum. J. Envtl. L. 119, 126-38 (2003);
15. M. Elizabeth Magill, Agency Choice of Policymaking Form, 71 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1383, 1386-1403 (2004).
16. For example, in the water quality field the following groups are involved: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; numerous state agencies, sometimes with conflicting priorities; regional water quality control boards; and local governments.
17. If environmental health outcomes data comes from studies of only certain groups within the population, it is not always safe to conclude that results will be similar for other populations. See Associated Press, EPA Proposes New Cancer Risk Guidelines, Mar. 4, 2003. Some EPA studies of potential carcinogens had been based on animal studies and data collected in adults where the impacts on children have never been addressed. It is possible that some mutagens cause a "10 times greater risk of a future cancer in children under 2 years old and in fetuses when the mother is exposed" than in adults
18. Id. The EPA and its Science Advisory Board have proposed stringent new guidelines to protect children.
19. By "sound science," here we mean investigations that meet generally accepted rules of methodological rigor and objectivity.
20. For example, how should decision makers treat what some scientists consider background levels of toxic substances in ground water?
21. Anne Larason Schneider & Helen Ingram, Policy Design for Democracy 158-59 (1997). The recent official federal position on global climate change is a major significant example, despite unprecedented consensus in many results.
22. See Naomi Oreskes, Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, 306 Science 1686, 1686 (2004).
23. Dennis L. Soden, At the Nexus: Science Policy, in At The Nexus: Science Policy 1, 1-4 (Dennis L. Soden ed., 1996).
24. The well-known cases of Love Canal and Woburn, Massachusetts, demonstrate the differences between official studies and popular epidemiology. In both cases, local perceptions and data collection on illness forced officials to reconsider initial positions.
25. For a discussion of popular epidemiology, see Frank Fischer, Citizens, Experts, and the Environment 151-55 (2000).
26. Tesh, supra note 2, at 32.
27. The manufacturers of breast implants paid multi-billion dollar settlements based on the conclusion that implants cause serious diseases. Later, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences said there was not persuasive evidence that serious ailments that some juries blamed on them, lupus among them, were caused by the devices. William Glaberson, The Courts vs. Scientific Certainty, N.Y. Times, June 27, 1999, § 4, at 5.
28. Numerous parallel movements in generating policy-relevant scientific information have been recognized. For a discussion on civic science and adaptive learning, see Kai N. Lee, Compass and Gyroscope (1993).
29. For a discussion of transcientific studies, see Silvio Funtowicz & Jerome R. Ravetz, Emergent Complex Systems, 26 Futures 568, 568 (1994).
30. For a discussion of the dialogic model, see Bruce A. Williams & Albert R. Matheny, Democracy, Dialogue, and Environmental Disputes: The Contested Language of Social Regulation (1995).
31. For a discussion of community based science, see Community Based Collaboratives Research Consortium, at http://www.cbcrc.org (last visited Apr. 11, 2005). These various approaches agree that there needs to be a more plural notion of the contribution of different disciplines and stakeholders.
32. For example, at the federal level, scientific results that support a rule in one agency (such as Agriculture) may not be made available to agency rulemaking in another (such as Interior).
33. See discussion supra, in section titled "Mixture of Science and Politics in Environmental Policy Making" and accompanying footnotes.
34. This treatment focuses on U.S. institutions, but the argument generalizes to the global level and in a future paper we hope to be specific about the international institutions and synergies that we identify. See, e.g., Note, The CITES Fort Lauderdale Criteria: The Uses and Limits of Science in International Conservation Decisionmaking, 114 Harv. L. Rev. 1769, 1769-92 (2001).
35. Recent concerns include those about cell phone use, genetically engineered foodstuffs, and electromagnetic fields associated with transmission lines.
36. Another example is the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, which has addressed the generation, monitoring, and study of the toxic effects of airborne noxious agents.
37. See, for example, the role of scientific information in the creation of Total Maximum Daily Load (TMMDL) under The Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. §§ 1251-1387 (2000).
38. Magill, supra note 8, at 1399.
39. Nicholas A. Robinson, Legal Systems, Decisionmaking and the Science of Earth's Systems: Procedural Missing Links, 27 Ecology L.Q. 1077, 1140 (2001) (explaining the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2011-2281).
40. Id.
41. A Google search on Consensus Workshop produced sites for subjects ranging from sudden cardiac death as a major health hazard to the toxic effects of long-term PUVA Therapy.
42. Various organizations employ some version of this approach. At the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the term used is Consensus Development Conference and a major topic example is biomedical technology. NIH consensus statements are prepared by "non advocates" based on presentations during a public session, questions and statements from the conference, and "closed deliberations" by the panel. The statement is an independent report, not a federal policy statement.
43. Joseph F. DiMento, Der Consensus Workshop: Ein Geeignetes Forum fur Grenzwertsetzung? (When Rats Die and We Don't Know Why: Institutional Innovations for Improving the Scientific Basis of Environmental Regulations) in Grenzwerte (Gerd Winter ed., 1986).
44. Epidemiologists differ over numerous matters - ranging from proper end point definition to ways of combining data in different studies to create a data set. Experts also disagree over how to search for relevant scientific reports, the number of reports that make up a sufficient database, how outlier findings are to be treated, whether a paper is an outlier or a harbinger of a trends, and the characteristics that define an acceptable study. These are concerns about data quality no matter how generated or used and should be considered in filtering data for decision making. Scientists differ on the manner in which research questions should be framed and on what end-points are important. And clinicians may differ dramatically in their interpretations of a subject. These are the kinds of questions that decision makers should address for any information introduced into the decision-making process or they should expect some other level of review to have done so.
45. First proposed in the 1970s, the court would be a forum where factual technical issues are adjudicated and results made available to decision makers. Arthur Kantrowitz, Controlling Technology Democratically, 63 Am. Scientist 505, 506-09 (1975).
46. Determining this standard is not simple, but it might be attained by seeking convergence of nominees by the relevant scientific societies and vetting choices with special panels such as those of the National Academies.
47. Task Force of the Presidential Advisory Group on Anticipated Advances in Science and Technology, The Science Court Experiment: An Interim Report, 193 Science 653, 654 (1976).
48. See Andrew C. Revkin, Dispute Arises over a Push to Change Climate Panel, N.Y. Times, Apr. 2, 2002, at A10 (describing the Bush administration's attempts to replace the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the face of industry pressures).The incumbent had been Dr. Robert T. Watson, "an outspoken advocate of the idea that human actions - mainly burning oil and coal - are contributing to global warming and must be changed to avert environmental upheavals." Id.
49. Id.
50. Several other issues make true consensus elusive. Among them: -What is an appropriate exercise of scientific judgment even when there are considerable good data on a topic? -Which mathematical model to employ in fitting available data especially when there is a small number of points -Whether data on one species should be exclusively used or whether extrapolations across species should be routinely undertaken in the absence of clear scientific reasons to do so -Whether a safety factor should be added to risk assessments even if an observed "no effect" level of exposure could be found.
51. Environmental Research, Development, and Demonstration Authorization Act, 42 U.S.C. § 4365 (2000).
52. Attempts are made to balance committees on the basis of geography, ethnicity, gender, and sector. No member of the SAB can be a full-time federal employee. It is the case, however, that, according to the Government Accounting Office (GAO), the SAB has been criticized for having scientists who often have conflicts of interest. See Eric Pianin, Toxic Chemical Review Process Faulted: Scientists on EPA Advisory Panels Often Have Conflicts of Interest, GAO Says, Wash. Post, July 16, 2001, at A2.
53. Other entities generating scientific information for policy makers having characteristics that may also be applicable to the types of problems we address in this article include state and regional government science boards. The Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) is a regional partnership of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and the EPA. Subcommittees deal with specific scientific issues affecting the Chesapeake Bay such as nutrients, toxics, monitoring, modeling, and living resources. See Chesapeake Bay Program, Bay Program Info, at http://www.chesapeakebay.net/ (last visited Sept. 2, 2005). The Michigan Environmental Science Board is a permanent state-chartered science board. It aims to provide scientific advice to the governor and to state departments "on matters affecting the protection and management of Michigan's environment and natural resource."
54. See Michigan.gov, Dep't of Envtl. Quality, Mich. Envtl. Sci. Bd., MESB Mission, at http://www.michigan.gov/mesb (last visited Sept. 2, 2005). The California Bay/Delta Estuary Authority has an Independent Science Board (upon which one of the authors has membership) and other subsidiary science boards to review such programs as ecosystems restoration and the use of water markets for acquiring water for endangered species. The specific charge of the Authority is to integrate the best evolving science into water management.
55. See Press Release, California Bay-Delta Authority, California Bay-Delta Authority Appoints Independent Science Board (Aug. 20, 2003), available at http://calwater.ca.gov/newsroom/newsrelease_2003/ final_newsrelease_cbda_appoints_isb_8-20-03.pdf (last visited Sept. 2, 2005).
56. Robinson, supra note 27, at 1142.
57. Id. at 1124. Robinson elaborated: The procedural dimension of environmental law has been to ensure that...scientific analysis is relied upon in decisions about humans and nature. These procedures couple scientific evaluation with the decisionmaker's essential normative judgement to address specific problems in context: how, in light of competing economic and social factors, and in view of alternative technologies, should ongoing or proposed human conduct be modified in order to protect public health and to restore and maintain the integrity of natural systems?
58. Id. at 1125.
59. The approach now has worldwide adoption. For a discussion of the approach in state law, see Joseph F. DiMento, State Environmental Impact Review, in Arden H. Rathkopf & Daren A. Rathfopf, The Law of Zoning and Planning § 7B (1999);
60. and in regional and international law, see generally Joseph F.C. DiMento, The Global Environment and International Law (2003).
61. Robinson, supra note 27, at 1143-44 (emphasis added).
62. Id. at 1145.
63. L.K. Caldwell, Future Significance of the National Environmental Policy Act, 22 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 203, 205 (1998).
64. Among NEPA's purposes is "to enrich the understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the Nation." 42 U.S.C. § 4321 (2002).
65. Claudia Goetz Phillips & John Randolph, The Relationship of Ecosystem Management to NEPA and Its Goals, 26 Envtl. Mgmt. 1, 1 (2000).
66. Lance N. McCold & James W. Saulsbury, Including Past and Present Impacts in Cumulative Impact Assessments, 20 Envtl. Mgmt. 767, 767 (1996).
67. Protection of Environment, 40 C.F.R. § 1508.7 (2004).
68. Roel Slootweg & Arend Kolhoff, A Generic Approach to Integrate Biodiversity Considerations in Screening and Scoping for EIA, 23 Envtl. Impact Assessment Rev. 657, 659 (2003).
69. See infra Part III.E, Recommendations 1 and 2.
70. See infra Part III.E, Recommendation 3.
71. See generally S.M. Bartell, Ecology, Environmental Impact Statements, and Ecological Risk Assessment: A Brief Historical Perspective, 4 Hum. & Ecological Risk Assessment 843 (1988);
72. Caldwell, supra note 45;
73. Bryan Foster, NEPA in a Knot, 109 Am. Forests 46 (2003);
74. Council on Envtl. Quality, The National Environmental Policy Act: A Study of Its Effectiveness After Twenty-Five Years (1997), available at http://ceq.eh.doe.gov/nepa/nepa25fn.pdf (last visited Apr. 9, 2005);
75. Phillips & Randolph, supra note 47;
76. Robinson, supra note 27;
77. Slootweg & Kolhoff, supra note 50;
78. P. Benjamin Underwood & Charles C. Alton, Could the SEA-Directive Succeed Within the United States?, 23 Envtl Impact Assessment Rev. 259, 260 (2003);
79. Dinah Bear, Some Modest Suggestions for Improving Implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act, 43 Nat. Resources J. 931 (2003).
80. Reportedly, at the federal level there exists no single repository of NEPA generated knowledge or even of the raw environmental impact statements themselves. Some states do request that the reports be sent to a state agency office where they are collected as in a library.
81. See infra Part III.E.2, Recommendation 2.
82. Robinson, supra note 27. A possible start for a model might be the Annual UCLA Institute of the Environment Report on the environmental conditions of Southern California. Whether the clearinghouse or houses should be or should include The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is a policy question. Unless CEQ is radically better funded and made more independent, such as is the Council on Economic Advisors, we think that its links to particular political administrations can taint the perception of its objectivity.
83. Id.
84. The Centers could also access data independently of the main participating institutions or of data submitted to the EIA library. Sources could include: the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) required under the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act; information available under the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard; Clean Air Act section 112 risk management information (now tightly controlled by EPA); Safe Drinking Water Act public data; information from the Beach Bill (following Congress's year 2000 amendment to the Clean Water Act requiring public disclosure about water quality at beaches, testing of recreational beaches for pathogens; and the maintenance by EPA of a national data base of contaminated waters); state right to know act information (Proposition 65 in California for example) and other right to know sources of data. See John D. Echeverria & Julie B. Kaplan, Poisonous Procedural "Reform" In Defense of Environmental Right-to-Know, 12 Kan. J. L. & Pub. Pol'y 579, (2003).
85. Discussion on the HEI. Scoping refers to choosing and limiting the range of actions, alternatives and impacts to be considered in an impact assessment. Protection of Environment, 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25 (2004).
86. The formal name of C8 is perfluorooctanoic acid, a chemical used in many industrial and consumer products. It is a ubiquitous substance that can remain in the body for up to five years.
87. DEP is an acronym for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.
88. Ken Ward Jr., EPA Gears Up to Study DuPont Chemical: In Use Since 1951, C8 Exposure Now Alleged to Be Dangerous, Charleston Gazette, Nov. 18, 2002, at 1A.
89. Id.
90. Id.
91. Joon Ha Kim & Stanley B. Grant, Public Mis-notification of Coastal Water Quality: A Probabilistic Evaluation of Posting Errors at Huntington Beach, California, 38 Envtl. Sci. & Tech. 2497 passim (2004).
92. Id.
93. See UCI fibrary web page. www.lib.uci.edu/online.
94. Recently, public comment opened on a 2000 page environmental impact report on a proposed 700-mile high-speed rail line linking northern and southern California. It will be years before the train may become a reality but a central means of collecting increasingly relevant and/or changing assessments of environmental impacts of the proposed route or segments thereof could be very valuable and void re-doing the assessment should political and economic conditions make it feasible.
95. The Forest Service prepares more environmental reports than any other federal agency and is seeking ways of standardizing its data reporting. Foster, supra note 53, at 50. Interestingly, the Forest Service also has experienced a period of loss of public trust.
96. Kathleen E. Halvorsen, Assessing the Effects of Public Participation, 63 Pub. Admin. Rev. 535, 535-43 (2003)
97. (citing David A. Clary, Timber and The Forest Service (1986)). Recently, the federal administration has advocated limiting environmental impact analyses both for forest planning and for some major energy projects. While on its face the suggested reform appears directly contrary to our reforms, another interpretation exists. Undertaking credible, respected, available, and transparent enhanced environmental assessment could obviate the need for some case-by-case reviews.
98. The need for better science that agencies like the Forest Service can call upon is illustrated by a Ninth Circuit decision involving the Service. In Idaho Sporting Congress v. Thomas, 137 F.3d 1146 (1998), the court held that the Service's reliance on a three-year-old survey for a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) determination was deficient and that the Service failed to reflect the cumulative effects of logging actions. This was in a situation where impacts on an indicator species, the bull trout, were involved.
99. Phillips & Randolph, supra note 47. Reportedly, the Bonneville Power Administration has prepared "a single, broad environmental assessment that would provide the foundation for a decision on an overall policy, but also encompassed the ability to decide future specific actions."
100. Underwood & Alton, supra note 53, at 260.
101. Matthew L. Wald, Court Hears Arguments on Waste Site in Nevada, N.Y. Times, Jan. 15, 2004, at A22.
102. Id.
103. Id.
104. Or consider the value of generally accepted understandings, including in quantitative terms, of the effects of electromagnetic waves from power utilities and power lines. See Kim Sung-jin, Electromagnetic Waves from Power Utilities Not Harmful, Korea Times, Aug. 8, 2002, 17:18.
105. The report by a Korean research institute concluded, "The research project was conducted in accordance with the World Health Organization's Good Laboratory Practice to ensure its credibility. We hope the research results will relieve people living nearby or working in electricity facilities..." Id. Whether or not that is true from the specific study, if, over time, high-level science produces similar results that are communicated in understandable terms to policy maker's decisions may be better accepted.
106. Independent Peer Review of Products That Support Agency Decision-Making: Hearing Before the Water Resources Subcomm. of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Comm., 108th Cong. (2003) (statement by Paul Gilman, Assistant Administrator Research and Development and EPA Science Advisor).
107. EPA itself has an interesting test that might be applicable: "It is unnecessary to conduct peer reviews of straightforward applications or transfers of accepted, previously peer reviewes economic methods or analyses....Additional peer review is not required if an application of an adequately peer reviewed work product does not depart significantly from its scientific or technical approach." U.S. Envtl. Protection Agency, Peer Review Handbook 28, 36-37 (2d ed. 2000), available at http://www.epa.gov/OSA/spc/htm/prhandbk.pdf (last visited Apr. 9, 2005).
108. Generating enhanced environmental impact assessment may provide an opportunity for objective and progressive use of the Data Quality Act if scientists and concerned citizens conclude that the data bases in these significant assessments contain questionable information. Under that act, government is required to create procedures for "ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility and integrity of information." Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Agencies, 66 Fed. Reg. 49,718 (Sept. 28, 2001).
109. The Supreme Court's test for admissibility of scientific expert testimony uses several factors relevant for consideration of evaluation of information submitted to an assessment. "General acceptance" is not an absolute prerequisite to admissibility, and an agency has no obligation to calculate the precise probability of harm for a finding that a significant risk exists. The four nonexclusive factors are (1) whether a scientific theory can and has been tested, (2) whether it has been subjected to peer review, (3) its potential rate of error, and (4) its degree of general acceptance within the relevant scientific community. Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms.,Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 589-96 (1983).
110. See generally D. Hiep Truong, Daubert and Judicial Review: How Does an Agency Distinguish Valid Science from Junk Science?, 33 Akron L. Rev. 365 (1999-2000).
111. Bradley C. Karkkainen, Toward a Smarter NEPA: Monitoring and Managing Government's Environmental Performance, 102 Colum. L. Rev. 903 (2002).
112. Id.
113. The precautionary principle holds that, in the absence of scientific certainty, decisions nonetheless favor cost effective measures to prevent environmental degradation. Sometimes referred to as the "do no harm" principle, it is part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. May 29, 1992, 31 I.L.M. 849, regime and that of other multinational environmental agreements. See, e.g., Declaration on Environment and Development, June 13, 1992, Principle 15, 31 I.L.M. 874.
114. D. Loveridge, Technology and Environmental Impact Assessment: Methods and Synthesis, 11 Int'l J. Tech Mgmt. 539, 539 (1996).
115. Such as the transportation/air quality conformity process. There are three reasons to include this information: the level of technical detail required for conformity analyses meets or exceeds the level of technical detail required for NEPA; unless conformity is taken into account, alternatives and mitigation measures generated during the NEPA analytical process may later result in a negative conformity determination; and...public comment periods, unless coordinated, would run consecutively rather than concurrently, potentially delaying project implementations.
116. S. Shaheen et al., Concurrent Air Quality Analyses Under the National Environmental Policy Act and Transportation Air Quality Conformity, 49 Transp. Q. 55, 55 (1995).
117. The use of these statements may mean more negative declarations; this is a side effect of likely developing strong base line data and a good sense of the environmental conditions of a region or a program.
118. Frank Fischer discusses the Berger Inquiry, one of the oldest and most important examples of participant policy inquiry, as well as subsequent research. Fischer, supra note 16, at 231-41;
119. See Halvorsen, supra note 69;
120. John Gaventa, The Powerful, the Powerless, and the Experts: Knowledge Struggles in an Information Age, in Voices of Change: Participatory Research in the United States and Canada 21, 34-40 (Peter Park et al. eds., 1993);
121. see generally Philip Kitcher, Science, Truth, and Democracy (2002).
122. It is not our purpose to evaluate any specific participatory tools and strategies. Among those that have received favorable attention, however, is decision-based scoping, which "places emphasis on first identifying the potential decisions that may eventually need to be made....Combined with other tools this can identify and more accurately assess actions, alternatives and impacts." Charles H. Eccleston, The Decision-Identification Tree: A New NEPA Scoping Tool, 26 Envtl. Mgmt. 457 (2000), and outside agency audits of challenged assessments, which is an alternative to the more complex processes suggested involving a science court or a generic legislatively mandated procedure such as under the Data Quality Act.