Applying the NEPA Process for State DOT Assignment Authority

Description

This workshop is specifically designed for those state agency employees, consultants, attorneys, and other key participants in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process conducted by State agencies that have been assigned NEPA responsibilities (or expected to obtain the authority in the future) under the Surface Transportation Project Delivery Program administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) for highway, transit and rail projects. Participants develop an understanding of NEPA and transportation decisionmaking and skills to document decisions and their rationale. You will learn to identify the appropriate form of environmental documentation and the appropriate level of detail. Through practice you will learn to organize and write well-designed, consistent, and analytic EISs/EAs and decision memos for Categorical Exclusions (CEs) that clearly and concisely present managerial information to decisionmakers and the interested public.

Objectives

Upon completion of this workshop, participants will be able to do the following:

·       Understand the unique nature and key challenges of conducting NEPA under U.S. DOT assignment authority

·       Understand integrated, shared decisionmaking as a context for environmental documentation

·       Produce, direct, contribute to, or review environmental decision documents that illuminate the decisionmaking thought process and serve as a management tool

·       Help decisionmakers make an informed, reasoned, legally defensible decision and help the interested and affected public respond effectively

·       Understand the key compliance requirements of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) 

·       Learn why NEPA was created, its purpose, and the relationship between NEPA, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), and other environmental laws.

·       Integrate the Proposal and NEPA Decisions 
Learn to identify and keep the decisionmaker informed. Create and analyze Records Of Decision (RODs) and Findings Of No Significant Impact (FONSIs).

·       Describe the Affected Environment 
Learn how to establish a baseline, describe environmental attributes and potential effects, and construct an effects prediction framework.

·       Develop Alternatives 
Learn to define the no-build alternative; establish the design, evaluation, and selection criteria; identify problem-causing actions of the alternatives; and discard alternatives that are unreasonable.

·       Predict and Document Environmental Consequences 
Learn how to comply with CEQ requirements for documenting the prediction of effects, involve the public in the effects-analysis process, and comply with required Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Environmental Assessment (EA) document quality and characteristics.

Audience

Participants for this training generally include NEPA coordinators, resource specialists, district engineers, attorneys, other DOT professionals, consultants and other key participants in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process conducted by State agencies that have been assigned NEPA responsibilities by the US DOT. must understand the NEPA process and how it applies to transportation projects.

Process

Applying the NEPA Process for State DOT Assignment Authority is an interactive workshop designed to build practical skills in effective NEPA compliance. For optimum learning, class size is limited to 15-25 participants. This 2 or 3-day workshop consists of a carefully designed combination of the following:

·       40% Lecture

·       60% Discussion and exercises

Materials

Participants receive the following:

·       Comprehensive workshop manual

·       Workshop Resources Workbook