The U.S. Department of Agriculture is announcing the publication of a draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) for the Local Meat Capacity (Local MCap) Grants program. The draft PEA analyzes and describes the potential environmental impacts associated with the establishment of the program.
Based on the analysis conducted by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service under the draft PEA, USDA has preliminarily determined there will not be a significant impact to the human environment. As a result, USDA has not begun preparing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). AMS intends for this PEA to establish a framework that will make any future assessments more efficient by placing project-specific actions that may need more analysis into priority tiers. As decisions on specific applications are made, if additional National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis is required, the agency will conduct an environmental review to supplement the analysis set forth in this PEA.