Lesson 5: Considerations During the Process

Topic 5: Environmental Effects (National Environmental Policy Act)

In this topic, you’ll learn about the National Environmental Policy Act and how it can affect market access requests.

Objective:

  • Explain the purpose of the National Environmental Policy Act and how its requirements affect rulemaking

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 applies to any action taken by the U.S. government, not just market access requests. NEPA’s goal is to ensure that agencies consider their actions in light of the possible impacts on the environment and, through that process, consider ways to make those impacts as small as possible. Because a decision to allow the importation of a commodity is an action that an agency takes, all such actions (whether accomplished through rules or notices) must be reviewed under NEPA.

Sec. 2 [42 USC ยง 4321] of the NEPA Statute states:

The purposes of this Act are: To declare a national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment; to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man; to enrich the understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to the Nation; and to establish a Council on Environmental Quality.

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.

For APHIS, most market access requests are routine actions that are not likely to have any effects on the human environment. Some market access requests, however, require more in-depth consideration of environmental effects. If this is the case, APHIS will prepare an environmental assessment to document its findings with respect to environmental impacts. APHIS will then take public comment on this document, in addition to the public comment period for the proposed rule or notice.

Agencies that routinely use the same processes to mitigate risk, such as using cold treatment to prevent the introduction of fruit flies on host commodities, can apply the results of previous use of that process to other future uses. So, if APHIS determined that cold treatment could be used to neutralize the risk of fruit flies being introduced via the importation of citrus from Australia, then it could apply the results of previous uses of cold treatment for the purposes of this analysis. The same would be true if APHIS determined that ruminant meat from another country was safe to import under conditions similar to those used for importation of beef from Uruguay in 9 CFR 94.22.

In this topic, you learned about the National Environmental Policy Act and how it can affect market access requests.

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