If navigating NEPA, conducting analytic interdisciplinary environmental planning, reviewing complex environmental planning and NEPA documents, NEPA integrated with the Clean Water Act Section 404 or CEQA, or working affirmatively with another agency is a challenging and painful process for you, then Environmental Planning Strategies, Inc.’s dynamic and practical training workshops and seminars are the solution.
Come join Judith Lee, President of Environmental Planning Strategies, Inc to experience the power of the Facilitated Planning Approach™ and the dynamic, interactive, and practical training that you can immediately put to work.
All workshops use a combination of lecture, facilitated discussion, and your own “real life” case studies, tailored to your specific audience, to ensure that participants learn NEPA effective methods of environmental planning and document preparation and review that can be used directly and immediately in your work.
Our dynamic, interactive, and highly tailored workshops teach the Facilitated Planning Approach™ based on these fundamental skills:
Start your planning with a clear understanding of the underlying problem you are trying to solve
Frame decisions with measurable objectives and clear decision criteria
Use interdisciplinary cause-and-effect relationships to create reasonable alternatives, effective mitigation, and focused impact analyses, including cumulative impacts
Use the power of NEPA and/or interdisciplinary planning to save time and avoid “repeat planning,” document rewrites, and conflict
Overcome poor communication in organizational “silos” during planning environmental reviews and planning for projects, programs, and permits
Prepare clear Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and Statements of Work (SOWs) to retain inherently governmental/corporate functions and obtain the assistance you need
Build positive long-term relationships and enjoy doing it
Receive a comprehensive manual that will become your most-used NEPA and planning reference
1. Powerful Planning Using NEPA and the Facilitated Planning Approach™
2. Powerful NEPA Document Review under Section 309 of the Clean Air Act for the EPA
3. Conducting Powerful NEPA Document Reviews for NEPA and Planning Practitioners and Managers
4. Conducting Powerful Cumulative Impact Analyses for Planners and NEPA Practitioners
5. A Dialogue of Understanding: Creating a Common Language
6. Powerful Planning Focusing on Underlying Need for Action (Purpose and Need)
7. Developing and Implementing Effective NEPA and Other Project and Program Planning Strategies
8. Powerful Integration of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act and NEPA
10. Productive and cost-effective contracting for NEPA support
1. Powerful Planning Using NEPA and the Facilitated Planning Approach™
3 days
This is Environmental Planning Strategies, Inc’s most popular tailored workshop
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Conduct effective and practical NEPA planning processes and impact analyses using Environmental Planning Strategies, Inc’s proven, systematic, and interdisciplinary Facilitated Planning Approach™
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Ensure complete and effective planning strategies, environmental impact analyses, and agency and public engagement
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Apply and adapt the CEQ regulations and guidance, your agency NEPA procedures, court decisions and precedents, and effective planning tools and processes to your project or program decision making
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Improve interdisciplinary working relationships within your agency and with cooperating and commenting agencies
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Experience training tailored to beginner through advanced NEPA practitioners, reviewers, attorneys, and managers
2. Powerful NEPA Document Review under Section 309 of the Clean Air Act for the EPA
3 Days
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Learn and apply Environmental Planning Strategies, Inc.’s proven and effective “10-Step Process for Analytic Review of EISs/EAs” based on the Facilitated Planning Approach™
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Apply the "10-Step" Process to actual EISs submitted to your EPA Region for evaluating the adequacy of analysis and severity of environmental impacts compliant with EPA policy guidance
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Practice reviewing skills for identifying, retrieving, and categorizing key information needed for recognizing and understanding the strengths and holes in the analysis
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Eliminate the “fluff” of needless detail in long and unfocused documents and drill down into the truly analytic information and data
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Learn how to compile interrelated data and information to readily conduct interdisciplinary analysis on the information and evaluate available and lacking information necessary for quality and informed decision making
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Understand the agency decision making regulations, and the politics, conflicts, and unwritten precedents and pressures underlying the alternatives and analyses
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Focus and prioritize your comments on truly important analytic lapses and inadequacies relevant to planning, environmental, and political issues, policies, and precedent, while also identifying document and analysis strong points
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Experience training tailored to beginner and advanced reviewers, attorneys, and managers, and to your client agencies and their issues
3. Conducting Powerful NEPA Document Reviews for NEPA and Planning Practitioners and Managers
3 Days
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This workshop is similar to “Powerful NEPA Document Review under Section 309 of the Clean Air Act for the EPA” except that it is tailored to your particular agency or company
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You will learn the same skills that Environmental Planning Strategies, Inc teaches EPA, applying the proven “10-Step Process for Analytic Review of NEPA Documents” for ensuring informed and defensible decisions that are supported and fulfill the need
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You will also learn how EPA reviews EISs and EAs under Section 309 of the Clean Air Act so that you can conduct project planning and prepare documentation that can sail through the review
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Experience training tailored to beginner and advanced reviewers, attorneys, and managers, and to your and your client agencies and their issues
4. Conducting Powerful NEPA Cumulative Impact Analyses for Planners and NEPA Practitioners
3 Days
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Learn the role that cumulative impacts play within overall project or program planning and decision making
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Develop, analyze and apply cause-and-effect relationships using a practical and interdisciplinary process for:
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Identifying direct and indirect effects and how they contribute to cumulative impacts for each resource and issue
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Identifying effects related to induced growth and their relationship to cumulative effects
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Selecting and describing the appropriate baseline for each cumulative impact analysis in time and space (temporal and geographic scope)
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Incorporating past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions into the cause-and-effect relationships for both baseline and alternatives
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Recognizing and integrating all appropriate connected and cumulative actions into the cause-and-effect relationships as the basis for identifying and developing reasonable alternatives for meeting the need
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Using the Facilitated Planning Approach™, including the CEQ regulations, CEQ and EPA cumulative impact guidance, court decisions and precedents, and effective impact analysis tools and processes, integrate direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts into the systematic integrated planning process for informed decision making
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Experience training tailored to beginner and advanced planners and NEPA practitioners, attorneys, and managers, and can be effectively used to improve interdisciplinary working relationships within the agency and with cooperating and commenting agencies
5. A Dialogue of Understanding: Creating a Common Language
Length tailored to need
This highly consultative and tailored workshop is intended for agency managers, advanced planners, and NEPA practitioners from several agencies, planning entities, and/or publics and stakeholders experiencing conflict or controversy to:
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Work together in a safe, facilitated environment to create a common language and understanding of the legal and practical application of NEPA and the CEQ implementing regulations or the applicable planning regulations
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Better understand the policies, processes, and organization of each agency or decision making entity to foster better working relationships
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Identify and affirmatively address areas of conflict, and cooperatively develop practical and effective means for issue resolution acceptable to all participating agencies
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Create interpersonal and interagency/planning organization trust, affirmative patterns of communication, and positive mutually beneficial long-term relationships
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Identify action items and points of agreement, implementation responsibilities, and open items for further understanding
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If desired, the points of agreement and action items can be recorded for the basis of a Memorandum of Agreement or other appropriate documentation
6. Powerful Planning Focusing on Underlying Need for Action (Purpose and Need)
3 Days
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Learn the essential roles that the underlying need for action, objectives, and scope of the decisions to be made (purpose and need) play in initiating and driving systematic interdisciplinary planning and NEPA compliance and informed decision making
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Focus on interdisciplinary processes for identifying the connected and similar actions included within the scope of a specific authorizing decision, and conducting the analyses necessary to determine the true underlying problem or need to be resolved
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Learn how to differentiate between the underlying need versus focusing on the proposed action
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Discuss the various approaches to analyzing a clear and focused underlying need, and opportunities for and disadvantages of potentially developing more than one interrelated need for efficient decision making, and learn how to make the correct determination
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Learn how to identify the possible and most powerful metrics for evaluating effectiveness (objectives or decision criteria) and selecting the most appropriate objectives that provide the basis for evaluating the feasibility of alternatives and the foundation for making decisions and monitoring effectiveness of the decisions made
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Use the need, objectives, and connected and similar actions to determine the correct scope of decisions for the particular planning or NEPA effort
7. Developing and Implementing Effective NEPA and Other Project and Program Planning Strategies
Preparations
5 days on-site, plus opportunity for additional consulting support
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This highly consultative and tailored workshop uses Environmental Planning Strategies, Inc.'s proven NEPA Facilitated Planning Approach™, including Informed Facilitation™, to guide the interdisciplinary planning team through a specific NEPA or planning effort
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The interdisciplinary team is facilitated through the highly efficient systematic planning effort by the Informed Facilitator, who is part of the team while simultaneously moving the process forward and documenting the analysis as it progresses
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Depending on the complexity of the planning processes and issues and level of information, data, and analysis available during the on-site session, the Informed Facilitator, Judith Lee, guides the team through initiating planning (underlying need, objectives, and decision(s) to be made), describing the proposed action, developing cause-and-effect relationships for each issue, and, at a minimum, developing reasonable alternatives based on the cause-and-effect relationships. If possible, impact analyses will be initiated
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Judith Lee becomes informed on the issues and science before coming on site to work with the team (Informed Facilitation™) and assists in scoping the complexity of and strategy for the planning and documentation effort
8. Powerful Integration of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act and NEPA
3-4 Days
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This highly consultative workshop is individually tailored for the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and/or their client agencies
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Learn the complex Corps of Engineers and EPA regulations implementing Section 404 of the Clean Water Act and their correlative NEPA regulations
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Apply the Public Interest Review required for all applications for Individual Permits and the CWA Section 404(b)(1) Guidelines
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Understand the differences between scope of decisions and scope of analysis for Section 404 and NEPA, including federalization of projects
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Learn how the Corps regulations for regulatory permits and civil works projects differ and integrate
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Discuss how the Corps and NEPA decision making processes can be merged for more effective and efficient decision making while recognizing inherent obstacles
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Gain a unique workshop manual that integrates the co-related Corps regulations and NEPA regulations into a “smart system” based on Environmental Planning Strategies, Inc’s Facilitated Planning Process™ and supplementary system of the actual Corps and EPA regulations
9. Powerful Integration of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
and the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) 3-4 Days
This highly consultative workshop focuses on learning effective methods for integrating NEPA requirements and the California Environmental Quality Act, using the Facilitated Planning Approach™
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The workshop correlates sections of CEQA and related regulations with pertinent NEPA sections, providing a clear contrast where NEPA and CEQA are similar and where CEQA has additional analytic and substantive requirements
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The consultant systematically guides participants through applying the merged NEPA and CEQA regulations and processes using Environmental Planning Strategies, Inc’s Facilitated Planning Process™ to actual NEPA/CEQA documents and projects
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This workshop is tailored to advanced NEPA and CEQA practitioners, reviewers, and managers, and can be effectively used to improve interdisciplinary working relationships of federal and state agencies
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The workshop manual will become your most-used reference for both NEPA and CEQA, and may be supplemented by the CEQ guidance
10. Productive and Cost-effective Contracting for NEPA
1 Day
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Contracting for NEPA can be a challenge - especially identifying your needs and defining the Statement of work (SOW) for productively and cost-effectively obtaining the NEPA assistance you need in these times of substantial budget and staff cuts that leverage for expertise and time of management and staff within budget and management discretion.
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This workshop is tailored for decision makers, managers, interdisciplinary team leaders, contracting offers/representatives and contractors who may or may have any experience with NEPA.
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Based on over 30 years of experience as a former government resource manager / NEPA interdisciplinary team leader, and NEPA consultant and trainer for most Federal agencies, the workshop provides practical knowledge, expertise, and skills for improving NEPA,contracting for both the agency and contractors.
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The Workshop starts with a brief introduction to the systematic interdisciplinary approach required by NEPA. including initiating planning focused on purpose and need, initiating and conducting analysis focused on cause-and-effect relationship, and informed decision making focused on impact analyses.
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The workshop shares practical, straightforward, and leading-edge methods and tips for defining the SOW and Request for Proposal (RFQ) to ensure that NEPA contracting delivers the support you actually need from contractors, through a thorough understanding of agency and contractor roles as defined by the NEPA regulations and inherently governmental functions creating productive and cost-effective agency-contractor partnerships.
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The workshop can be followed by consultative support in preparing an actual SOW by a team of workshops participants at negotiated consulting rates.
Disclaimer: This is NOT a workshop on contract law and the FAR.
In partnership with Pathway Consulting Service, LLC, Environmental Planning Strategies, Inc specializes in the planning, environmental review, and permitting of projects requiring use of federal land, such as infrastructure energy, broadband, transportation projects, and other projects. Please see www.lee-cunninghamipr.com.
Choose from Nine Comprehensive, Dynamic, and Unique Workshops Tailored to Your Needs