National Environmental Policy Act; Proposed Implementing Procedures and Categorical Exclusions

Federal agencies are required to develop procedures to implement the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations implementing NEPA. Consistent with these requirements, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is proposing new NEPA implementing procedures (NEPA Procedures), including the establishment of new categorical exclusions (CEs) as part of its NEPA Procedures. CEs 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. CEs are a form of review that agencies use to comply with NEPA for proposed actions that normally have no or minimal environmental effects. NIST requests the views of the public on its draft NEPA Procedures as well as its substantiation record for the proposed CEs.