Signed by Richard Nixon on January 1, 1970 as his first act of the new decade, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) required all federal agencies to prepare detailed environmental impact statements for 'major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment,' and created the Council on Environmental Quality within the Executive Office of the President. NEPA is procedural — it does not dictate outcomes — but the EIS requirement fundamentally changed how the federal government plans infrastructure, and it inspired similar 'little NEPA' laws in most states.