1625-0015 Stat/Authority

CHAPTER V—COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL
QUALITY
Part

1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1515
1516
1517

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Page

Purpose, policy, and mandate .................................
NEPA and agency planning .....................................
Environmental impact statement ...........................
Commenting ............................................................
Predecision referrals to the Council of proposed
Federal actions determined to be environmentally unsatisfactory .......................................
NEPA and agency decisionmaking ..........................
Other requirements of NEPA ..................................
Agency compliance .................................................
Terminology and index ...........................................
Index to Parts 1500 Through 1508 .............................
Freedom of Information Act procedures .................
Privacy Act implementation ...................................
Public meeting procedures of the Council on Environmental Quality ...............................................
Office of Environmental Quality Management
Fund .....................................................................

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vironmental consequences, and take
actions that protect, restore, and enhance the environment. These regulations provide the direction to achieve
this purpose.

PART 1500—PURPOSE, POLICY,
AND MANDATE
Sec.
1500.1 Purpose.
1500.2 Policy.
1500.3 Mandate.
1500.4 Reducing paperwork.
1500.5 Reducing delay.
1500.6 Agency authority.

§ 1500.2

AUTHORITY: NEPA, the Environmental
Quality Improvement Act of 1970, as amended (42 U.S.C. 4371 et seq.), sec. 309 of the Clean
Air Act, as amended (42 U.S.C. 7609) and E.O.
11514, Mar. 5, 1970, as amended by E.O. 11991,
May 24, 1977).

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SOURCE: 43 FR 55990, Nov. 28, 1978, unless
otherwise noted.

§ 1500.1 Purpose.
(a) The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is our basic national
charter for protection of the environment. It establishes policy, sets goals
(section 101), and provides means (section 102) for carrying out the policy.
Section 102(2) contains ‘‘action-forcing’’ provisions to make sure that federal agencies act according to the letter and spirit of the Act. The regulations that follow implement section
102(2). Their purpose is to tell federal
agencies what they must do to comply
with the procedures and achieve the
goals of the Act. The President, the
federal agencies, and the courts share
responsibility for enforcing the Act so
as to achieve the substantive requirements of section 101.
(b) NEPA procedures must insure
that environmental information is
available to public officials and citizens before decisions are made and before actions are taken. The information must be of high quality. Accurate
scientific analysis, expert agency comments, and public scrutiny are essential to implementing NEPA. Most important, NEPA documents must concentrate on the issues that are truly
significant to the action in question,
rather than amassing needless detail.
(c) Ultimately, of course, it is not
better documents but better decisions
that count. NEPA’s purpose is not to
generate paperwork—even excellent
paperwork—but to foster excellent action. The NEPA process is intended to
help public officials make decisions
that are based on understanding of en-

Policy.

Federal agencies shall to the fullest
extent possible:
(a) Interpret and administer the policies, regulations, and public laws of the
United States in accordance with the
policies set forth in the Act and in
these regulations.
(b) Implement procedures to make
the NEPA process more useful to decisionmakers and the public; to reduce
paperwork and the accumulation of extraneous background data; and to emphasize real environmental issues and
alternatives. Environmental impact
statements shall be concise, clear, and
to the point, and shall be supported by
evidence that agencies have made the
necessary environmental analyses.
(c) Integrate the requirements of
NEPA with other planning and environmental review procedures required
by law or by agency practice so that all
such procedures run concurrently rather than consecutively.
(d) Encourage and facilitate public
involvement in decisions which affect
the quality of the human environment.
(e) Use the NEPA process to identify
and assess the reasonable alternatives
to proposed actions that will avoid or
minimize adverse effects of these actions upon the quality of the human
environment.
(f) Use all practicable means, consistent with the requirements of the
Act and other essential considerations
of national policy, to restore and enhance the quality of the human environment and avoid or minimize any
possible adverse effects of their actions
upon the quality of the human environment.
§ 1500.3

Mandate.

Parts 1500 through 1508 of this title
provide regulations applicable to and
binding on all Federal agencies for implementing the procedural provisions
of the National Environmental Policy
Act of 1969, as amended (Pub. L. 91–190,
42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.) (NEPA or the Act)

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§ 1500.4

40 CFR Ch. V (7–1–11 Edition)

except where compliance would be inconsistent with other statutory requirements. These regulations are
issued pursuant to NEPA, the Environmental Quality Improvement Act of
1970, as amended (42 U.S.C. 4371 et seq.)
section 309 of the Clean Air Act, as
amended (42 U.S.C. 7609) and Executive
Order 11514, Protection and Enhancement of Environmental Quality (March
5, 1970, as amended by Executive Order
11991, May 24, 1977). These regulations,
unlike the predecessor guidelines, are
not confined to sec. 102(2)(C) (environmental impact statements). The regulations apply to the whole of section
102(2). The provisions of the Act and of
these regulations must be read together as a whole in order to comply
with the spirit and letter of the law. It
is the Council’s intention that judicial
review of agency compliance with
these regulations not occur before an
agency has filed the final environmental impact statement, or has made
a final finding of no significant impact
(when such a finding will result in action affecting the environment), or
takes action that will result in irreparable injury. Furthermore, it is the
Council’s intention that any trivial
violation of these regulations not give
rise to any independent cause of action.

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§ 1500.4

Reducing paperwork.

Agencies shall reduce excessive paperwork by:
(a) Reducing the length of environmental impact statements (§ 1502.2(c)),
by means such as setting appropriate
page limits (§§ 1501.7(b)(1) and 1502.7).
(b) Preparing analytic rather than
encyclopedic environmental impact
statements (§ 1502.2(a)).
(c) Discussing only briefly issues
other than significant ones (§ 1502.2(b)).
(d) Writing environmental impact
statements in plain language (§ 1502.8).
(e) Following a clear format for environmental
impact
statements
(§ 1502.10).
(f) Emphasizing the portions of the
environmental impact statement that
are useful to decisionmakers and the
public (§§ 1502.14 and 1502.15) and reducing emphasis on background material
(§ 1502.16).

(g) Using the scoping process, not
only to identify significant environmental issues deserving of study, but
also to deemphasize insignificant
issues, narrowing the scope of the environmental impact statement process
accordingly (§ 1501.7).
(h) Summarizing the environmental
impact statement (§ 1502.12) and circulating the summary instead of the entire environmental impact statement if
the latter is unusually long (§ 1502.19).
(i) Using program, policy, or plan environmental impact statements and
tiering from statements of broad scope
to those of narrower scope, to eliminate repetitive discussions of the same
issues (§§ 1502.4 and 1502.20).
(j)
Incorporating
by
reference
(§ 1502.21).
(k) Integrating NEPA requirements
with other environmental review and
consultation requirements (§ 1502.25).
(l) Requiring comments to be as specific as possible (§ 1503.3).
(m) Attaching and circulating only
changes to the draft environmental impact statement, rather than rewriting
and circulating the entire statement
when changes are minor (§ 1503.4(c)).
(n) Eliminating duplication with
State and local procedures, by providing for joint preparation (§ 1506.2),
and with other Federal procedures, by
providing that an agency may adopt
appropriate environmental documents
prepared by another agency (§ 1506.3).
(o) Combining environmental documents with other documents (§ 1506.4).
(p) Using categorical exclusions to
define categories of actions which do
not individually or cumulatively have
a significant effect on the human environment and which are therefore exempt from requirements to prepare an
environmental
impact
statement
(§ 1508.4).
(q) Using a finding of no significant
impact when an action not otherwise
excluded will not have a significant effect on the human environment and is
therefore exempt from requirements to
prepare an environmental impact
statement (§ 1508.13).
[43 FR 55990, Nov. 29, 1978; 44 FR 873, Jan. 3,
1979]

§ 1500.5 Reducing delay.
Agencies shall reduce delay by:

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Council on Environmental Quality

§ 1501.1

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(a) Integrating the NEPA process
into early planning (§ 1501.2).
(b) Emphasizing interagency cooperation before the environmental impact
statement is prepared, rather than submission of adversary comments on a
completed document (§ 1501.6).
(c) Insuring the swift and fair resolution of lead agency disputes (§ 1501.5).
(d) Using the scoping process for an
early identification of what are and
what are not the real issues (§ 1501.7).
(e) Establishing appropriate time
limits for the environmental impact
statement process (§§ 1501.7(b)(2) and
1501.8).
(f) Preparing environmental impact
statements early in the process
(§ 1502.5).
(g) Integrating NEPA requirements
with other environmental review and
consultation requirements (§ 1502.25).
(h) Eliminating duplication with
State and local procedures by providing for joint preparation (§ 1506.2)
and with other Federal procedures by
providing that an agency may adopt
appropriate environmental documents
prepared by another agency (§ 1506.3).
(i) Combining environmental documents with other documents (§ 1506.4).
(j) Using accelerated procedures for
proposals for legislation (§ 1506.8).
(k) Using categorical exclusions to
define categories of actions which do
not individually or cumulatively have
a significant effect on the human environment (§ 1508.4) and which are therefore exempt from requirements to prepare an environmental impact statement.
(l) Using a finding of no significant
impact when an action not otherwise
excluded will not have a significant effect on the human environment
(§ 1508.13) and is therefore exempt from
requirements to prepare an environmental impact statement.
§ 1500.6 Agency authority.
Each agency shall interpret the provisions of the Act as a supplement to
its existing authority and as a mandate
to view traditional policies and missions in the light of the Act’s national
environmental objectives. Agencies
shall review their policies, procedures,
and regulations accordingly and revise
them as necessary to insure full com-

pliance with the purposes and provisions of the Act. The phrase ‘‘to the
fullest extent possible’’ in section 102
means that each agency of the Federal
Government shall comply with that
section unless existing law applicable
to the agency’s operations expressly
prohibits or makes compliance impossible.

PART 1501—NEPA AND AGENCY
PLANNING
Sec.
1501.1 Purpose.
1501.2 Apply NEPA early in the process.
1501.3 When to prepare an environmental
assessment.
1501.4 Whether to prepare an environmental
impact statement.
1501.5 Lead agencies.
1501.6 Cooperating agencies.
1501.7 Scoping.
1501.8 Time limits.
AUTHORITY: NEPA, the Environmental
Quality Improvement Act of 1970, as amended (42 U.S.C. 4371 et seq.), sec. 309 of the Clean
Air Act, as amended (42 U.S.C. 7609, and E.O.
11514 (Mar. 5, 1970, as amended by E.O. 11991,
May 24, 1977).
SOURCE: 43 FR 55992, Nov. 29, 1978, unless
otherwise noted.

§ 1501.1

Purpose.

The purposes of this part include:
(a) Integrating the NEPA process
into early planning to insure appropriate consideration of NEPA’s policies
and to eliminate delay.
(b) Emphasizing cooperative consultation among agencies before the
environmental impact statement is
prepared rather than submission of adversary comments on a completed document.
(c) Providing for the swift and fair
resolution of lead agency disputes.
(d) Identifying at an early stage the
significant environmental issues deserving of study and deemphasizing insignificant issues, narrowing the scope
of the environmental impact statement
accordingly.
(e) Providing a mechanism for putting appropriate time limits on the environmental impact statement process.

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