Regulacje i polityka gospodarcza · 23/12/2014

Final Guidance for Effective Use of Programmatic NEPA Reviews

The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is issuing its final guidance on programmatic National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews. This guidance provides clarification on when and how Federal agencies should use programmatic environmental analyses in accordance with NEPA, 42 U.S.C. 4332, and the CEQ Regulations for Implementing the Procedural Provisions of NEPA, 40 CFR parts 1500-1508. Guidance on programmatic NEPA reviews has been requested by the agencies and attention on programmatic NEPA reviews has increased as agencies undertake more broad landscape-scale analyses for proposals that affect the resources they manage. This guidance is designed to assist agency decisionmakers and the public in understanding the environmental impacts from proposed large-scope Federal actions and activities and to facilitate agency compliance with NEPA by clarifying the different planning scenarios under which an agency may prepare a programmatic, broad-scale, review. The guidance also addresses how agencies can prepare such reviews to ensure they are timely, informative, and useful for advancing decision-making. The goal of this guidance is to encourage a more consistent approach to progr