This bill, the Community Water Project Acceleration Act, tells the Secretary of the Army to mark certain small water projects as "categorical exclusions" under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). That means those projects would be treated as not needing an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement under NEPA. The exclusion applies to projects that meet all of these rules:
The bill requires the Secretary of the Army to make those designations within 180 days after the bill becomes law and to write regulations to carry out the rules within 150 days.
If your community or local sponsor runs a water project that fits the bill's rules, the project could be excluded from NEPA environmental assessments and impact statements. The project must be part of a continuing authority or environmental infrastructure program, built by the non-Federal sponsor, and meet the Federal cost limits in the bill.
The bill sets cost thresholds for which projects may get the categorical exclusion (Federal share under $6,000,000, or Federal share under 15% and total cost at most $35,000,000). No publicly available information on changes to federal spending, budgetary costs, or appropriations is provided in the bill text.
No publicly available information.
No publicly available information.