Plain-text conversions of U.S. Final Environmental Impact Statements from 2013-2020

Administrative procedures are intended to increase transparency and help agencies make better decisions. However, these requirements also increase agency workload. Understanding how public agencies satisfy procedural requirements is a critical facet of agency performance. This analysis focuses on the language agencies use in Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) required by the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) – specifically, the reuse of similar text within and between assessments. We synthesize theories of institutional isomorphism and bureaucratic coping to understand why and how text is reused, and consider the tradeoffs associated with this behavior. Using a national dataset of 1014 EISs published by 22 U.S. agencies from 2013 to 2020, we explore how boilerplate language varies by agency, authors, project type, location, and consulting firm involvement. We find that text reuse primarily occurs where there is a clear substantive rationale for boilerplate language or wh...