SIAs and the Law

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is the primary legal requirement for SIA. SIA is done as part of environmental assessments (EAs) and environmental impact statements (EISs) under NEPA and the pertinent Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and GSA regulations, orders, and guidelines (40 CFR 1500-1508; ADM 1095.1F; PBS 1095.4C; GSA NEPA Desk Guide). Several of the questions in GSA's Categorical Exclusion Checklist (NEPA Desk Guide: Exh. 5-1) involve social impact issues (Questions A, B, E, F, K).

Section 40 CFR 1508.14 of the CEQ NEPA regulations states that:

. . . economic or social effects are not intended by themselves to require preparation of an environmental impact statement . . . .

This means that if there are no environmental impacts of any kind other than impacts of an economic or a social nature, an EIS is not required. An EA may be necessary, however, in order to determine whether significant effects of any kind will occur. Economic and social impacts are among those that should be examined in an EA. When an EIS is done, according to Section 40 CFR 1508.14:

. . . and economic or social and natural or physical environmental effects are interrelated, then the environmental impact statement will discuss all these effects on the human environment.

Executive Order 12898 adds weight to the inclusion of SIA in NEPA analyses because it requires special attention to "disproportionate and adverse" impacts on the environmental and health concerns of low income populations and minority populations (see NEPA Call-In Fact Sheet "Environmental Justice," February 1998). To understand the concerns of a low-income community or a minority community about perceived environmental impacts, it is necessary to understand something about how the community is organized, and what its belief systems are. Moreover, a GSA action can affect the organization or belief system, and indeed the viability, of a low income or minority community itself, in ways that are disproportionate and adverse.

Other legal authorities relevant to GSA that bear on SIA include:

Executive Order 12072, which requires considering social and cultural impacts when giving preference to siting Federal Facilities in centralized community business areas.
Executive Order 11988, which requires extensive community involvement in decisions regarding siting in or around floodplains.
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, which requires working with affected groups in remediating toxic and hazardous wastes.
Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires considering the impacts of actions on historic places; such places are often of social and cultural importance to communities.
The American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and Executive Order 13007, which collectively require consultation with Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian groups about effects on their cultural values.

Social Impact Assessment

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To contact support, please email nepa.callin@gsa.gov