Bulletins for Preparing Environmental Reports

On December 11, 1998, RUS published final regulations, Environmental Policies and Procedures (7 CFR 1794), in the Federal Register.  In accordance with:

Subpart B, §1794.10, Applicant responsibilities. … applicants shall prepare the applicable environmental documentation concurrent with a proposed action’s engineering, planning, and design activities. RUS shall assist applicants by outlining the types of information required and shall provide guidance and oversight in the development of the documentation. Documentation shall not be considered complete until all public review periods, as applicable, have expired and RUS concurrence, as set forth in the appropriate decision document and associated public notice, has been issued. 

This environmental documentation referenced above is to be submitted to Rural Development Utilities Programs as an Environmental Report and the guidance for preparing the Environmental Report is published as R D Utilities Programs Bulletins.

Guidance for preparing Environmental Reports is as follows: 

The Bulletins contain Uniform Resources Locators (URL) or links for the Federal environmental regulatory or resource agencies that have jurisdiction over particular environmental concerns.  Applicants preparing Environmental Reports need to contact and consult with these agencies for identifying and determining a proposal's potential impact to those resources.   Each RD State Environmental Coordinator maintains a State Supplement to Bulletin 1794A-602; the supplements contain State agency URLs, point-of-contacts, addresses, State-level requirements, etc. 

In addition to the guidance contained in the Bulletin, the following documents or forms are available to assist applicants and Rural Development staff complete the environmental review process: