649 



is not a major Federal action. Whereas without the NEPA exemption 

 the Secretary would make taht decision on a project-by-project basis 

 taking all tlie relevant facts into consideration, the exemption would 

 make a one-shot, prior congression determination that no major Fed- 

 eral action is involved in any impact fund loan or grant without giving 

 consideration to any of the potentially massive construction projects 

 which those loans or grnats may support. Clearly, in many instances, no 

 significant impact on the environment would be likely to occur when a 

 grant ro loan is made under S. 586. In such cases tlie Secretary or his 

 designated Federal official, under existing law, would decide that no 

 impact statement was necessary. However, in some situations such as 

 a proposed land purchase or new public facility which would be paid 

 for with the grant or loan funds but would not necessarily be otherwise 

 tied to Federal action, the environmental impacts might be significant 

 and deserving of analysis. Moreover, alternatives might exist with 

 lesser impacts which should also be explored. The judgment on whether 

 or not an impact statement should be written to address these ques- 

 tions in detail is, therefore, best made in light of the circumstacnes of 

 each case. 



Without the NEPA exemption proposed by this bill any probable 

 significant environmental impacts would be examined, if appropriate, 

 by the grant applicant. Such analyses, and any subsequent impact 

 statemnet deemed necessary by the Department of Commerce, would 

 then serve to aid federal decisionmakers and the public in determin- 

 ing the merits of the grant application. Over the past 5 years the rec- 

 ord of Federal agencies under NEPA has proved the value of the 

 impact statement process in forcing the analysis of environmental ef- 

 fects and alternatives before decisions are made. In short, the impact 

 statement mechanism has proved to be a useful management tool for 

 Federal adminsitrators and there is nothing in the public record to 

 suggest that it would not also be a useful tool for the Secretary of 

 Commerce in administering the impact fund. 



Mr. President, this NEPA exemption is particularly unfortunate 

 because it has far wider application than first appears. It would effec- 

 tively destroy NEPA. The impact fund loans and grants could be used 

 to finance almost any public construction projects and, under the ex- 

 emption, no impact statement would be required. Ther© is nothing in 

 this provision to prevent the funding of highways, ports, airports, 

 sewer interceptors, or other f aiclities now funded under other Federal- 

 aid programs. As NEPA fully applies to those programs, by transfer- 

 ring the projects which would otherwise be funded under them to 

 S. 586's grants or loans, the impact statement requirement could be 

 avoided altogether. I cannot believe that public policy would be served 

 by exempting such major Federal actions as highways, airports, and 

 other facilities from the requirements of NEPA. If such facilities 

 were exempted from NEPA, NEPA itself would be only a regional 

 bill whose application would be limited largely to non-coastal states 

 and inland areas. 



Page 30 of the report on S. 586 contains the following statement : 



This does not mean, however, that the constniction of a public facility or any 

 other action paid for with such grants or loans, which requires an environmental 

 impact statement on its own merits, is exempt from that requirement. 



