FRA prepared the Concept Screening Report as part of the development of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in compliance with:

• National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 (42 United States Code [USC] § 321 et seq.);
• The Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) NEPA Regulations (40 Code of Federal Regulations [CFR] §§ 1500-1508);
• The FRA Procedures for Considering Environmental Impacts (64 Federal Register [FR] 28545 [May 26, 1999]); and
• The FRA’s Update to NEPA Implementing Procedures (78 FR 2713 [January 14, 2013]).

The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (as amended) (NHPA) Section 106 process is coordinated with the NEPA process for this Project in keeping with CEQ and Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) guidance (“NEPA and NHPA: A Handbook for Integrating NEPA and Section 106,” March 2013).

For the WUS Expansion Project, FRA followed a four-step process from development of preliminary concepts to identification of alternatives for evaluation in the EIS (see table below). The Concept Screening Report documented the first three steps in the process—Concept Development, Concept Screening, and Concept Refinement—and identified the preliminary alternatives that were carried forward into the Alternatives Refinement phase (the fourth step).

At the conclusion of the Alternatives Refinement phase, FRA hosted a public meeting to present the alternatives that will be evaluated in the EIS. For more information on the alternatives presented to the public, please visit the Public Meeting #4 page of this website.

A copy of the WUS Concept Screening Report can be downloaded below:

• 2017 WUS Concept Report