The National Environmental Policy Act: Background and Implementation Page: 20 of 38
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" Whether the action threatens a violation of federal, state, or local law
or requirements imposed for the protection of the environment.49
Individual agencies may consider additional factors based on environmental
impacts common to the types of projects pursued by that agency. Further, to
adequately determine an impact's intensity, input from other agencies may be needed.
For example, if a highway will cut across prime farmland, the Department of
Transportation (DOT) may need assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) to determine the intensity of the project's impacts.
Because degrees of impact must be evaluated to determine project significance,
such an evaluation may require subjective judgements. Therefore, a clear
administrative record is generally considered necessary to demonstrate that an agency
appropriately determined the significance of a project's impacts.
Overview of the NEPA Process
The NEPA process includes the steps a federal agency must take to document
consideration given to the significant environmental impacts of a proposed action.
For some actions, it may not be readily apparent that environmental impacts will be
significant. Some projects clearly have little or no significant impact, but they still
require an agency to demonstrate that the level of impacts was considered. To
account for this variability, CEQ regulations establish the following three classes of
action, which determine how compliance with NEPA analysis is documented:
" Actions Requiring an EIS - When it is known that the action will
have a significant environmental impact.
" Actions Requiring an Environmental Assessment (EA) - When the
significance of environmental impacts is uncertain and must be
determined.
" Actions that are Categorically Excluded - Those which normally
do not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the
human environment.
The requirement to produce an EIS is probably the most familiar element of
NEPA compliance. However, actions requiring an EIS account for a small
percentage of all federal actions proposed in a given year. For example, in 2006,
542 EISs were filed with EPA (this total includes draft, final, and supplemental
EISs).50 CEQ estimates that the vast majority of federal actions require an EA or are
categorically excluded from the requirement to prepare an EA or EIS.
Determining the total number of federal actions subject to NEPA is difficult, as
most agencies track only the number of actions requiring an EIS. Also, as indicated
in the figures above, agencies track the total draft, final, and supplemental EISs filed
in a given year, not the total number of individual federal actions requiring an EIS in
49 40 C.F.R. 1508.27(b).
50 CEQ' s "Number of EIS filed with EPA by Federal Agencies," available at
[http://ceq.eh.doe.gov/nepa/nepanet.htm].
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The National Environmental Policy Act: Background and Implementation, report, June 7, 2007; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc817006/m1/20/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.