(a) The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), as amended (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.) establishes national policies and goals for the protection of the human environment. Section 102(2) of NEPA directs all Federal agencies to give appropriate consideration to the environmental consequences of proposed actions in their decisionmaking and to prepare detailed environmental statements on major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.

(b) The purpose of this regulation is to supplement the regulations for implementation of NEPA established by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and codified at 40 CFR parts 1500-1508, as adopted by USDA in 7 CFR part 1b.

(c) Unless otherwise noted, parenthetical citations throughout this part refer to the CEQ regulations.