TRANSPORTATION PROJECT DEVELOPMENT AND THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT

This paper explores the nexus between project management and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) activities for a major federal action. In many federal agencies, the responsibility for project management is completely separate from the responsibility for NEPA implementation; however, each Program Secretarial Officer in the Department of Energy has a NEPA compliance officer. These NEPA compliance officers are integrated into project management teams and are an integral part of the project development effort. This ensures effective integration between NEPA and project management activities. As the project management and NEPA activities are implemented, it becomes clear that they are very complementary processes. This paper will describe the integration of NEPA and project management activities for development of a rail line to the proposed Yucca Mountain geologic repository in Nye County, Nevada.