Council on Environmental Quality Submits Report to Congress on Environmental Analysis of Recovery Act Activities and Projects
WASHINGTON, DC – The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) today submitted its seventh report to Congress regarding the status and progress of projects and activities receiving funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and how they have complied thus far with National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements.
The report is an overview of the 15 Executive Branch departments and nine Agencies required to report on their current NEPA status under the Recovery Act. As of September 30th, the departments and agencies reported more than 250,000 Recovery Act funded projects or activities. The completed reviews support implementing more than $293 billion in Recovery Act projects and activities.
"More than 98 percent of the environmental reviews have been completed for projects and activities funded under the Recovery Act," said Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "The Departments and Agencies have once again shown that environmental impacts can be assessed and taken into account without delaying projects designed to stimulate our Nation’s economy."
The Departments and Agencies reported completing nearly 6,400 environmental assessments for the Recovery Act projects and activities. Those environmental assessments provide the basis for findings of no significant impact. More than 820 of the projects or activities were the subject of completed environmental impact statements, which is the most intensive NEPA review and is applied to projects or activities that may have significant effects on the human environment. Finally, approximately 179,500 of the projects or activities fit into categories of activities that did not have significant individual or cumulative effects on the human environment. Departments and Agencies completed categorical exclusions for these projects.
The full report is available here. Further information regarding the status of agency obligations is available on the Recovery Act website at www.recovery.gov.
###