[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 50 (Friday, March 13, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 14700-14702]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-05095]
[[Page 14700]]
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Office of the Secretary
[LLWO210000.L1610000]
National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Procedures for the
Bureau of Land Management (516 DM 11)
AGENCY: Office of the Secretary, Interior.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: This notice announces the Department of the Interior's
(Department) proposal to revise the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) implementing procedures for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
at Chapter 11 of Part 516 of the Departmental Manual (DM) with a
proposed new categorical exclusion (CX).
DATES: Comments must be postmarked (for mailed comments), delivered
(for personal or messenger delivery comments), or filed (for electronic
comments) no later than April 13, 2020.
ADDRESSES: The public can review the proposed changes to the DM and the
new proposed CX Verification Report online at: https://tinyurl.com/w8t4jx2. Comments can be submitted using:
BLM National NEPA Register: https://tinyurl.com/w8t4jx2.
Follow the instruction at this website.
Mail: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land
Management, Attention: WO-210-PJCX, 20 M Street SE, Room 2134LM,
Washington, DC 20003.
Personal or messenger delivery: U.S. Department of the
Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Attention: W0-210-PJCX, 20 M
Street SE, Room 2134LM, Washington, DC 20003.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Heather Bernier, Acting Division
Chief, Decision Support, Planning, and NEPA, at (202) 912-7282, or
[email protected]. Persons who use a telecommunications device for the
deaf (TDD) may call the Federal Relay Service (FRS) at 1-800-877-8339.
The FRS is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to leave a message
or question with the above individual. You will receive a reply during
normal business hours.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires Federal
agencies to consider the potential environmental consequences of their
decisions before deciding whether and how to proceed. The Council on
Environmental Quality (CEQ) encourages Federal agencies to use
categorical exclusions (CXs) to protect the environment more
efficiently by reducing the resources spent analyzing proposals which
generally do not have potentially significant environmental impacts,
thereby allowing those resources to be focused on proposals that may
have significant environmental impacts. The appropriate use of CXs
allow NEPA compliance, in the absence of extraordinary circumstances
that merit further consideration, to be concluded without preparing
either an environmental assessment (EA) or an environmental impact
statement (EIS) (40 CFR 1500.4(p) and 40 CFR 1508.4).
The Department's revised NEPA procedures were published in the
Federal Register on October 15, 2008 (73 FR 61292), and are codified at
43 CFR part 46. Additional Department-wide NEPA policy may be found in
the DM, in chapters 1 through 4 of part 516. The procedures for the
Department's bureaus are published as chapters 7 through 15 of this DM
part 516. Chapter 11 of 516 DM covers the BLM's procedures. The BLM's
current procedures can be found at: https://elips.doi.gov/ELIPS/DocView.aspx?id=1721. These procedures address policy as well as
procedure in order to assure compliance with the spirit and intent of
NEPA.
Rationale
The BLM has been managing sagebrush ecosystems for greater sage-
grouse, mule deer, and other species for over a decade, implementing
pinyon pine and juniper tree removal treatments to restore habitat
mosaics within the landscape and address the various habitat needs of
mule deer and sage-grouse. Pinyon pine and juniper tree encroachment
poses a serious threat to the health of millions of acres under BLM
management. Following years of experience removing these trees without
significant effects, the BLM has identified that establishing a CX for
the actions is necessary for expediting maintenance of sagebrush
habitats essential to mule deer and sage-grouse. The BLM has completed
review of scientific literature and previously analyzed and implemented
actions in the Report on the results of a Bureau of Land Management
analysis of NEPA records and field verification in support of
establishment of a categorical exclusion for pinyon pine and juniper
management projects (Pinyon-Juniper CX Verification Report), which is
incorporated by reference here, and is summarized in Justification for
Change below, and has found that the establishment of a CX is
appropriate because of the evidence of no significant effects from the
removal of these trees. Establishing the new proposed CX would
streamline the process for pinyon pine and juniper tree removal
projects that normally do not require analysis in order to determine
significance through an EA or EIS.
Description of Change
The Department proposes to add one CX to the BLM chapter of the
Departmental Manual 516 DM 11 at a proposed new Section, J. Habitat
Restoration. The language of the proposed new CX citation at 516 DM
11.9 J. (1) Habitat Restoration is:
(1) Covered actions on up to 10,000 acres within sagebrush and
sagebrush-steppe plant communities to manage pinyon pine and juniper
trees for the benefit of mule deer or sage-grouse habitats. Covered
actions include: Manual or mechanical cutting (including lop-and-
scatter); mastication and mulching; yarding and piling of cut trees;
pile burning; seeding or manual planting of seedlings of native
species; and removal of cut trees for commercial products, such as
sawlogs, specialty products, or fuelwood, or non-commercial uses. Such
activities:
(a) Shall not include: Cutting of old-growth trees; seeding or
planting of non-native species; chaining; pesticide or herbicide
application; broadcast burning; jackpot burning; construction of new
temporary or permanent roads; or construction of other new permanent
infrastructure.
(b) Shall disclose the land use plan decisions providing for
protections of the following resources and resource uses in the
documentation of the categorical exclusion:
(1) Specifications for management of mule deer habitat;
(2) Specifications for management of sage-grouse habitat;
(3) Specifications for erosion control measures;
(4) Criteria for minimizing or remedying soil compaction;
(5) Types and extents of logging system constraints (e.g.,
seasonal, location, extent);
(6) Extent and purpose of seasonal operating constraints or
restrictions;
(7) Criteria to limit spread of weeds;
(8) Size of riparian buffers or riparian zone operating
restrictions; and
(9) Operating constraints and restrictions for pile burning.
The intent of this CX is to improve the efficiency of routine
environmental review processes in for the management of pinyon pine and
juniper trees for the benefit of mule deer and sage-grouse habitat.
Each proposed action must be
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reviewed for extraordinary circumstances that would preclude the use of
this CX. The Department list of extraordinary circumstances under which
a normally excluded action would require further analysis and
documentation in an EA or EIS is found at 43 CFR 46.215. If a proposed
pinyon pine and juniper tree management project is within the activity
described in this CX, then these ``extraordinary circumstances'' will
be considered in the context of the proposed project to determine if
they indicate the potential for effects that merit additional
consideration in an EA or EIS. If any of the extraordinary
circumstances indicate such potential, the CX would not be used, and an
EA or EIS would be prepared.
The public is asked to review and comment on the newly proposed CX.
To be considered, any comments on this proposed addition to the list of
CXs in the DM must be received by the date listed in the DATES section
of this notice at the location listed in the ADDRESSES section.
Comments received after that date will be considered only to the extent
practicable. Comments, including names and addresses of respondents,
will be part of the public record and available for public review at
the BLM address shown in the ADDRESSES section, during business hours,
8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, except holidays. Before
including your address, telephone number, email address, or other
personal identifying information in your comment, you should be aware
that your entire comment--including your personal identifying
information--may be made publicly available at any time. While you can
ask us in your comment to withhold your personal identifying
information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be
able to do so.
Justification for Change
Proposed CX number J (1) covers management and control of juniper
and pinyon pine on treatment areas of up to 10,000 acres to benefit
mule deer and sage-grouse habitat. This CX would allow the BLM to more
quickly implement sagebrush-steppe restoration projects that would
reduce pinyon pine and juniper density and cover in areas of their
expansion, while improving and increasing native plant communities. The
BLM proposes CX J (1) after reviewing existing NEPA analysis and
available scientific research on the effects of these types of routine
actions over time and over different geographic areas. The BLM has
documented in detail the justification for establishing this new CX in
the Verification Report, which is incorporated by reference here and
available to review in full at the websites shown in ADDRESSES.
Pinyon and juniper woodlands were estimated to occupy less than 3
million hectares (7 million acres) prior to Euro-American settlement
(1870s), but now occupy over 30 million hectares (74 million acres), a
10-fold increase attributed to many factors including fire suppression,
grazing, land clearing, and climate change (Miller and Tausch 2001).
Pinyon-juniper species can be aggressive invaders into more productive
shrub-steppe communities that historically occupied deeper soils than
the pinyon pine and juniper tree woodlands. As of 2016, sagebrush
ecosystems in the U.S. occupied only about one-half of their historical
distribution (Pyke et al. 2017).
The BLM's review of the available literature demonstrates that the
activities proposed for this new CX would not cause significant
environmental effects, whether the activities were to be implemented
individually or in combination. As discussed in detail in the
Verification Report Methods section, the research overwhelmingly shows
that pinyon pine and juniper tree removal restores ecosystem values
associated with the rebound of native shrubs (including sagebrush),
perennial grasses, and forbs, even when there may be a component of
non-native forbs and annual grasses. Despite the expectation that
annual grasses (e.g., exotics like cheatgrass) often increase after
pinyon pine and juniper tree treatment, the current literature shows
that the native plant communities reestablish after mechanical pinyon
pine and juniper tree removal treatments, becoming dominant (over
nonnative species) either immediately after treatment or within a few
years. The Jones (2019) literature review reported no studies showing
that pinyon-juniper removal had negative effects on sage-grouse
habitat, and 60 percent of the relevant studies found that pinyon pine
and juniper tree removal in sagebrush communities increased sage-grouse
use of the treated areas. A review of pinyon pine and juniper tree
treatment effects on deer and elk habitat by Bombaci and Pejchar
(2016), cited by Jones (2019), found that mechanical treatments have
variable effects on deer and elk use of sage-steppe ecosystems, both
seasonally and annually, ranging from decreased use to increased use.
As discussed in the Methods section of the Verification Report, the
BLM has analyzed the effects of many pinyon pine and juniper tree
removal projects in EAs, and has monitored post-implementation results.
All associated NEPA documents were reviewed to determine the scope of
environmental consequences anticipated to result from the proposed
actions. There were no instances where any of the evaluated projects
would have resulted in a need to complete an EIS had these measures not
been applied as a feature of the proposed action or alternatives.
Often, through application of design features, environmental effects
are minimized to the degree that resource issues were eliminated from
further analysis due to application of these project elements. While
long-term benefits of reducing fuel loading and improving sagebrush-
steppe habitats are primarily beneficial, neutral, or result in no
effect findings, there are documented instances of adverse, residual
environmental consequences associated with implementation of these
treatments. These environmental consequences are not considered
individually or cumulatively significant based on the conclusions from
the EA analyses, which are summarized by resources in the Methods
section of the Verification Report for soils, invasive plants,
wildlife, pinyon pine and juniper tree obligate species, visuals, big
game species, wilderness characteristics, cultural artifacts, tribal
resources, air quality, and biomass (pp. 16-20). The BLM's post-
implementation observations align with the literature review summarized
in the Methods of the Verification Report.
The BLM specifically notes that with the current level of
understanding, the advance of invasive species, whether pre-existing or
new, may be an outcome of pinyon pine and juniper tree management.
However, as described in the Verification Report, native sagebrush and
sage-steppe vegetative composition and forage production improve
despite the presence of invasive plant species. The BLM addresses
actions for managing invasive plant species in their land use plans,
and any implementation of this CX would be required to be in
conformance with any protection measures required through the
applicable plan. In addition, the BLM has not included activities with
unknown or potentially high risks of introducing invasive plants in the
proposed CX, namely broadcast burning, jackpot burning, and road
construction.
The BLM's experience with implementing and monitoring these types
of project mirrors the scientific literature; taken together, they
support establishment of this proposed CX, providing the evidence that
this type
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and scope of action can be categorically excluded from further detailed
analysis. As described in detail in the Verification Report,
establishment of this proposed new CX would not individually or
cumulatively have significant impacts on the human environment, and its
use, like that of other administratively established CXs, would be
subject to extraordinary circumstances review.
Authorities: NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969,
as amended (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.); E.O. 11514, March 5, 1970, as
amended by E.O. 11991, May 24, 1977; and CEQ regulations (40 CFR
1507.3).
Michaela E. Noble,
Director, Office of Environmental Policy and Compliance.
[FR Doc. 2020-05095 Filed 3-12-20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4331-84-P