National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Procedures; Proposed Categorical Exclusions

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2023-0134]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Procedures; Proposed Categorical Exclusions</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Department of Transportation. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Consistent with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Council on Environmental Quality regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act, PHMSA is proposing to establish new categorical exclusions and agency the National Environmental Policy Act implementing procedures. Categorical exclusions are categories of actions that an agency has determined normally do not have a significant effect on the human environment, individually or in the aggregate. Categorical exclusions are a form of review that agencies use to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act for proposed actions that normally have no or minimal environmental effects. PHMSA requests the views of the public on its proposal to establish these CEs and agency National Environmental Policy Act procedures. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Submit written comments on or before January 9, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> To ensure you do not duplicate your docket submissions, please submit comments by only one of the following means: <E T="03">Web: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> This site allows the public to enter comments on any <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice issued by any agency. Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. <E T="03">Fax:</E> 1-202-493-2251. <E T="03">Mail:</E> Docket Management Facility, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001. <E T="03">Hand Delivery:</E> U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., EST, Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Identify docket number PHMSA-2023-0134 at the beginning of your comments. To avoid duplication, please use only one of these four methods. Note that all comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. You should know that anyone is able to search the comments received in any of our dockets by the name of the individual submitting the comment (or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf of an association, business, labor union, etc.). Therefore, you may want to review DOT's complete Privacy Act Statement (65 FR 19477) in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> <E T="03">,</E> published on April 11, 2000, or visit <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> before submitting any such comments. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket or to read background documents or comments, go to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> or DOT's Docket Operations Office (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ). If you wish to receive confirmation of receipt of your written comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped postcard with the following statement: “Comments on: PHMSA-2023-0134.” The Docket Clerk will date stamp the postcard prior to returning it to you via U.S. mail. Please note that due to delays in the delivery of U.S. mail to federal offices in Washington, DC, we recommend that persons consider an alternative method (internet, fax, or professional delivery service) for submitting comments to the docket and ensuring their timely receipt by DOT. <E T="03">Privacy Act Statement:</E> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT may solicit comments from the public regarding certain general notices. DOT posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information the commenter provides, to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> as described in the system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">www.dot.gov/privacy.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Carolyn Nelson, Office of Planning and Analytics, PHMSA, by email at <E T="03">Carolyn.Nelson@dot.gov</E> or by phone at 202-860-6173. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> requires Federal agencies to consider the environmental effects of their proposed actions in their decision-making processes and inform and engage the public in that process. Section 101(a) of NEPA sets forth a national policy to use all practicable means and measures, including financial and technical assistance, in a manner calculated to foster and promote the general welfare, to create and maintain conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, and fulfill the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations of Americans. 42 U.S.C. 4331(a). Section 102 of NEPA directs agencies to interpret and administer Federal policies, regulations and laws consistent with NEPA's policies. 42 U.S.C. 4332. NEPA also created the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), which has issued regulations implementing NEPA, 40 CFR parts 1500 through 1508 (CEQ regulations). CEQ also has issued numerous guidance documents to facilitate agency implementation of NEPA. <E T="03">See</E> CEQ, CEQ Guidance Documents, <E T="03">https://ceq.doe.gov/guidance/guidance.html.</E> 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 (CE). 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 1501.3(c)(3), part 1502, 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 EA, which is a concise public document used to support agency decision making. 40 CFR 1501.3(c)(2), 1501.5, 1508.1(j). After completing the analysis in 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, or conclude that the action is likely to have significant effects and therefore requires preparation of an EIS. 40 CFR 1501.6(a), 1508.1(j). Under NEPA and the CEQ regulations, a Federal agency establishes categorical exclusions (CEs)—categories of actions that the agency has determined normally do not have a significant effect on the human environment, individually or in the aggregate—in its agency NEPA procedures. 42 U.S.C. 4336(e)(1); 40 CFR 1501.4(a), 1507.3(c)(8), 1508.1(e). If an agency determines that a CE covers a proposed action, it then evaluates the proposed action for extraordinary circumstances, which are factors or circumstances that indicate a normally categorically excluded action may have a significant effect. 40 CFR 1501.4(b), 1508.1(o). If an extraordinary circumstance exists, the agency nevertheless may apply the CE if it 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 avoid the potential to result in significant effects. 40 CFR 1501.4(b)(1). In these cases, the agency must document such determination. <E T="03">Id.</E> If the agency cannot categorically exclude the proposed action, it will prepare an EA or EIS, as appropriate. 40 CFR 1501.4(b)(2). The CEQ regulations require Federal agencies to develop procedures to implement NEPA and the CEQ regulations, facilitate efficient decision making, and ensure that the agencies make decisions in accordance with the policies and requirements of NEPA. 40 CFR 1507.3. As part of their procedures, agencies must establish CEs and identify extraordinary circumstances. 40 CFR 1507.3(c)(8). When establishing new or revising existing CEs in agency NEPA procedures, agencies must substantiate the proposed new or revised CEs with sufficient information to conclude that each category of actions does not have a significant effect, individually or in the aggregate, on the human environment, and provide this substantiation in a written record that is made publicly available as part of the notice and comment process for developing or revising proposed agency procedures. <E T="03">See</E> 40 CFR 1507.3(b), (c)(8). In developing NEPA procedures, agencies must consult with CEQ and provide an opportunity for public review. 40 CFR 1507.3(b)(1)-(2). Before publishing final procedures, agencies must receive a determination from CEQ that the procedures conform with NEPA and the CEQ regulations. <E T="03">See</E> 40 CFR 1507.3(b)(2). PHMSA's mission is to protect people and the environment by advancing the safe transportation of energy and other hazardous materials that are essential to our daily lives. To do this, the Agency establishes national policy, promulgates and enforces safety regulations, educates, and conducts research to prevent incidents. PHMSA also prepares the public and first responders to mitigate consequences if a hazardous materials incident does occur. PHMSA's Office of Planning and Analytics (OPA), Environmental Analysis and Compliance Division, conducts and manages the Agency's environmental review process to ensure compliance with NEPA and other relevant federal environmental laws; reviews and approves environmental ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 54k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━