EIA United States II

The adequacy of an EIS can be challenged in court. Major proposed projects have been blocked because of an agency's failure to prepare an acceptable EIS. One prominent example was the Westway landfill and highway development in and along the Hudson River in New York City [2]. Another prominent case involved the Sierra Club suing the Nevada Department of Transportation over its denial of Sierra Club's request to issue a supplemental EIS addressing air emissions of particulate matter and hazardous air pollutants in the case of widening US Highway 95 through Las Vegas.[3] The case reached the 9th Circuit Court of the United States, which led to construction on the highway being halted until the court's final decision. The case was settled prior to the court's final decision.

Several US state governments that have adopted "little NEPA's," i.e., state laws imposing EIS requirements for particular state actions and some of those state laws refer to the required environmental impact studies as Environmental Impact Reports or Environmental Impact Assessments. [4] For example, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires an Environmental Impact Report (EIR).