Citing a need to reduce “paperwork,” the Interior Department has imposed controversial new restrictions on the length of crucial environmental studies.

In a newly revealed Aug. 31 memo, Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt directed that the department’s environmental impact statements “shall not be more than 150 pages or 300 pages for unusually complex projects.”

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By another count, published in 2014 by Stanford Law School students under the direction of former Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes, federal agencies “initiate approximately 50,000 EAs and 350 EISs per year.”

Hayes said in an e-mail today that “artificial page and time limits have little to do with effective compliance with NEPA,” adding that “the quality of the pre-EIS coordination among federal and state agencies, and the quality of outreach to stakeholders and the general public” are much more important.

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