Environmental Impact and Related Procedures (FHA & FTA)

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) issued this final rule that modifies our regulations to make certain changes mandated by the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU). SAFETEA-LU prescribes additional requirements for environmental review and project decision-making that are not appropriately reflected in the existing FHWA-FTA joint National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures. Additionally, this final rule creates certain new categorical exclusions (CE) allowing proposed actions to proceed without an environmental assessment (EA) or environmental impact statement (EIS), and makes other minor changes to the joint procedures in order to improve the description of the procedures or to provide clarification with respect to the interpretation of certain provisions. This final rule was effective April 23, 2009.