Notice of Adoption of Categorical Exclusions Under the National Environmental Policy Act

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE <SUBAGY>Department of the Air Force</SUBAGY> <SUBJECT>Notice of Adoption of Categorical Exclusions Under the National Environmental Policy Act</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Department of the Air Force, Department of Defense. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of adoption of categorical exclusions. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of the Air Force (DAF) has identified categorical exclusions (CATEXes) established by the Department of the Army (DA), Department of the Navy (DON), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Agricultural Research Service (ARS) that cover categories of actions that DAF is adopting. This notice identifies the thirty-five CATEXes established by the above listed Federal agencies and describes the categories of proposed actions for which the DAF intends to use these CATEXes. The DAF has consulted with these agencies, as described herein, and obtained concurrence on DAF use of these CATEXes. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The CATEXes identified below are available for DAF use effective immediately. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Mr. Jack Bush, DAF NEPA Policy and Execution Oversite, 703-695-1773, <E T="03">af.a4c.nepaworkflow@us.af.mil.</E> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">NEPA and CATEXes</HD> Congress enacted the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. 4321-4347 (NEPA) to encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between humans and the environment, recognizing the profound impact of human activity and the critical importance of restoring and maintaining environmental quality to the overall welfare of humankind. (42 U.S.C. 4321 and 4331). NEPA seeks to ensure that agencies consider the environmental effects of their proposed major actions in their decision-making processes and inform and involve the public in that process. NEPA created the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), which promulgated NEPA implementing regulations, 40 CFR parts 1500-1508 (CEQ regulations). To comply with NEPA, agencies determine the appropriate level of review of any major Federal action—an environmental impact statement (EIS), environmental assessment (EA), or categorical exclusion (CATEX) (40 CFR 1501.3). If a proposed action is likely to have significant environmental effects, the agency must prepare an EIS and document its decision in a record of decision (40 CFR part 1502, and § 1505.2). If the proposed action is not likely to have significant environmental effects or the effects are unknown, the agency may instead prepare an environmental assessment (EA), which involves a more concise analysis and process than an EIS (40 CFR 1501.5). Following the EA, the agency may conclude that the action will have no significant effects and document that conclusion in a finding of no significant impact (40 CFR 1501.6). If the analysis concludes that the action is likely to have significant effects, then an EIS is required. Pursuant to NEPA and the CEQ regulations, a Federal agency can also establish CATEXes—categories of actions that the agency has determined normally do not significantly affect the quality of the human environment—in their agency NEPA procedures (42 U.S.C. 4336e(1); 40 CFR 1501.4, 1507.3(c)(8)(ii), and 1508.1(e)). If an agency determines that a CATEX covers a proposed action, it then evaluates the proposed action for extraordinary circumstances in which a normally excluded action may have a significant effect (40 CFR 1501.4(b)). If no extraordinary circumstances are present, the agency may apply the CATEX to the proposed action without preparing an EA or EIS (42 U.S.C. 4336(a)(2), 40 CFR 1501.4). DAF considers extraordinary circumstances pursuant to appendix B to 32 CFR part 989—Categorical Exclusions, § A2.2. <E T="03">Additional Analysis</E> and will concurrently use the agency extraordinary circumstances for the adopted CATEXes as identified below. If an extraordinary circumstance exists, the agency nevertheless may apply the categorical exclusion if the agency conducts an analysis and determines that the proposed action does not in fact have the potential to result in significant effects notwithstanding the extraordinary circumstance or the agency modifies the action to address the extraordinary circumstance. In such cases, the agency shall document such determination and should publish it on the agency's website or otherwise make it publicly available (40 CFR 1501.4 (b)(1)). Section 109 of NEPA, enacted as part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, allows a Federal agency to adopt another Federal agency's CATEX for proposed actions (42 U.S.C. 4336c). To use another agency's CATEXes under section 109, the adopting agency must identify the relevant CATEX listed in another agency's (“establishing agency”) NEPA procedures that covers the adopting agency's category of proposed actions or related actions; consult with the establishing agency to ensure that the proposed adoption of the CATEX is appropriate for a category of actions; identify to the public the CATEX that the adopting agency plans to use for its proposed actions; and document adoption of the CATEX (42 U.S.C. 4336c). <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. DA, DON, NASA, TVA, and ARS Categorical Exclusions</HD> DAF is adopting fifteen CATEXes established by the DA. These CATEXes are listed in DA's NEPA regulations at 32 CFR part 651, appendix B. Each of the DA CATEXes includes conditions on the scope and application of the CATEX within the text of the numbered paragraphs listed below. 1. (b)(13) Actions affecting Army property that fall under another Federal agency's list of categorical exclusions when the other Federal agency is the lead agency (decision maker), or joint actions on another Federal agency's property that fall under that agency's list of categorical exclusions (Record of Environmental Consideration [REC] required). ( <E T="03">Note:</E> The DAF Environmental Planning Function must document application of this CATEX on AF Form 813 <E T="03">Request for Environmental Impact Analysis</E> as the DAF does not use Army required RECs; this applies to each instance of REC application in the following discussions). 2. (c)(1) Construction of an addition to an existing structure or new construction on a previously undisturbed site if the area to be disturbed has no more than 5.0 cumulative acres of new surface disturbance. This does not include construction of facilities for the transportation, distribution, use, storage, treatment, and disposal of solid waste, medical waste, and hazardous waste (REC required). 3. (c)(2) Demolition of non-historic buildings, structures, or other improvements and disposal of debris therefrom, or removal of a part thereof for disposal, in accordance with applicable regulations, including those regulations applying to removal of asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), lead-based paint, and other special hazard items (REC required). 4. (c)(3) Road or trail construction and repair on existing rights-of-ways or on previously disturbed areas. 5. (d)(1) Land regeneration activities using only native trees and vegetation, including site preparation. This does not include forestry operations (REC required). 6. (d)(2) Routine maintenance of streams and ditches or other rainwater conveyance structures (in accordance with USACE permit authority under section 404 of the Clean Water Act and applicable state and local permits), and erosion control and stormwater control structures (REC required). 7. (d)(3) Implementation of hunting and fishing policies or regulations that are consistent with state and local regulations. 8. (e)(2) Acquisition, installation, and operation of utility and communication systems, mobile antennas, data processing cable and similar electronic equipment that use existing right-of-way, easement, distribution systems, and/or facilities (REC required). 9. (e)(4) Modification, product improvement, or configuration engineering design change to materiel, structure, or item that does not change the original impact of the materiel, structure, or item on the environment (REC required). 10. (e)(7) Modification and adaptation of commercially available items and products for military application (for example, sportsman's products and wear such as holsters, shotguns, sidearms, protective shields, etc.), as long as modifications do not alter the normal impact to the environment (REC required). 11. (f)(1) Grants or acquisitions of leases, licenses, easements, and permits for use of real property or facilities in which there is no significant change in land or facility use. Examples include, but are not limited to, Army controlled property and Army leases of civilian property to include leases of training, administrative, general use, special purpose, or warehouse space (REC required). 12. (f)(2) Disposal of excess easement areas to the underlying fee owner (REC required). 13. (f)(6) Disposal of real property (including facilities) by the Army where the reasonably foreseeable use will not change significantly (REC required). 14. (g)(1) Routine repair and maintenance of buildings, airfields, grounds, equipment, and other facilities. Examples include but are not limited to: Removal and disposal of asbestos-containing material (for example, roof material and floor tile) or lead-based paint in accordance with applicable regulations; removal of dead, diseased, or damaged trees; and repair of roofs, doors, windows, or fixtures (REC required for removal and disposal of asbestos-containing material and lead-based paint or work on historic structures). 15. (g)(2) Routine repairs and maintenance of roads, trails, and firebreaks. Examples include but are not limited to: grading and clearing the roadsid ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 24k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━