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 used in Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) required by the US 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 text is reused, and consider the tradeoffs of this behavior. Using a national dataset of 1015 EISs published by 22 agencies from 2013 to 2020, we apply local document alignment (LDA) to measure how boilerplate language varies by agency, authors, project type, location, and consulting firm involvement. Latent order logistic and beta regression models applied to the LDA results show that text reuse primarily occurs where there is a clear substantive rationale for boilerplate language or where studies share authors or contract consulting firms. This indicates: (1) that agencies largely do not engage in pro forma compliance efforts; and (2) that while NEPA procedures are oriented around individual projects and decisions, cross-project learning and the narrowness—or breadth—of agencies’ project portfolios shape analytical routines and the relative tradeoffs of boilerplate text in policy analysis. This article adds to our theoretical understanding of agencies’ coping strategies in response to institutional pressures and makes a methodological contribution by demonstrating the application of text reuse measurement and information extraction methods in public administration research.

中文翻译：

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在监管文件中使用样板语言：来自环境影响报告的证据

行政程序旨在提高透明度并帮助机构做出更好的决策。然而，这些要求也增加了机构的工作量。了解公共机构如何满足程序要求是机构绩效的一个关键方面。该分析侧重于美国国家环境政策法案 (NEPA) 要求的环境影响报告 (EIS) 中使用的语言，特别是在评估内部和评估之间重复使用类似文本。我们综合了制度同构和官僚应对的理论来理解为什么文本被重用，并考虑这种行为的权衡。使用 22 个机构在 2013 年至 2020 年发布的 1015 个 EIS 的国家数据集，我们应用本地文档对齐 (LDA) 来衡量样板语言如何因机构、作者、项目类型、位置、和咨询公司的参与。应用于 LDA 结果的潜在顺序逻辑和 beta 回归模型表明，文本重用主要发生在样板语言有明确的实质性理由或研究共享作者或合同咨询公司的情况下。这表明：(1) 机构在很大程度上不参与形式上的合规工作；(2) 虽然 NEPA 程序以单个项目和决策为导向，但跨项目学习和机构项目组合的狭窄或广度塑造了分析例程和政策分析中样板文本的相对权衡。