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|   In 1975, New York State enacted the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) that required all state and local government agencies to assess the environmental effects of discretionary actions before undertaking, funding, or approving the actions, with certain exceptions. SEQRA regulations permit a local government to promulgate its own environmental review procedures, provided that they are no less protective of the environment than state procedures. New York City exercised this prerogative in 1977 with Executive Order No. 91 that established CEQR and centralized most environmental review functions in two "co-lead agencies," the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Department of City Planning (DCP). In order to expedite environmental reviews within the City and to ensure their consistency with applicable statutory and decisional law, the City’s Environmental Quality Review process was substantially modified in 1991 by the CEQR Rules of Procedure, which were superimposed on Executive Order No. 91 and adopted by the City Planning Commission. The previous system of having all environmental reviews go through "co-lead agencies" (DEP and DCP) was discarded in favor of a system in which each City agency acts as lead agency for projects that it approves, funds, and/or directly implements. OEC was set up as a policy office to complement and support the new "lead agency" approach embodied by the 1991 Rules of Procedure. OEC works with City agencies to ensure that they are applying consistent approaches and to provide expertise, as required, to agency staff who conduct environmental reviews. | |
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