Compliance Matters: NEPA and "Environmental Evaluation" at NRCS

Join us as we discuss why environmental compliance matters and learn how it works at NRCS including introduction to laws and legal basics, Environmental Evaluation (EE) and CPA-52, programmatic NEPA documents, categorical exclusions (CEs), where to find them all, and who to ask for help. Participants will receive an introduction to NEPA and its relationship to the NRCS Environmental Evaluation (EE). You will learn how the NRCS environmental compliance system operates with the following objectives in mind:

• Understand the legal foundations for environmental compliance with a focus on NEPA, the “human environment,” and demonstrating a “hard look” at the impacts of NRCS actions
• Recognize other key environmental laws and understand why they are important
• Recognize the regulatory, policy, and guidance resources for environmental compliance at NRCS
• Understand how the EE/CPA-52 provides the mechanism for documenting NRCS environmental compliance with the laws above
• Recognize how the process of documenting our actions in an EE/CPA-52 saves us time and prevents environmental and legal issues
• Know the history of the term “Environmental Evaluation” and where it comes from in NRCS regulations
• Learn how the EE provides local analysis of the impacts of our actions, identifies and explains the use of an appropriate CE, or documents the use of the appropriate programmatic NEPA document
• Understand the critical support documents for our CEs and our programmatic NEPA: Conservation Practice Standards, Network Effects Diagrams (NEDs), Conservation Practice Physical Effects
• Know where to find environmental compliance resources and who to call for help