42 U.S.C. § 12838 — Environmental review

(a) In general: To carry out the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) effectively, and to protect the environment, the Secretary^* may, by regulation, let jurisdictions or insular areas take over all the responsibilities for environmental review, decisionmaking, and action under NEPA and related laws — the same responsibilities the Secretary would have had if doing the project^* directly as a federal project. The Secretary must consult the Council on Environmental Quality before issuing these regulations. The regulations must provide for (1) monitoring the environmental reviews done under this section, (2) at the Secretary's discretion, training for doing these reviews, and (3) suspending or ending a jurisdiction's assumption of these duties. None of this reduces any responsibility a state^* or local government has already taken on for releasing funds.

(b) Procedure: The Secretary may only approve releasing funds under this section if, at least 15 days before approval and before committing any funds to the project, the jurisdiction has submitted a request along with a certification meeting subsection (c)'s requirements. The Secretary's approval of that certification counts as satisfying the Secretary's own NEPA responsibilities for that fund release.

(c) Certification: A certification under this section must (1) be in a form the Secretary accepts, (2) be signed by the recipient's chief executive officer or another qualified officer, (3) state that the recipient has fully carried out its subsection (a) responsibilities, and (4) state that the certifying officer (A) agrees to take on the role of a responsible federal official under NEPA and other relevant laws, and (B) agrees, for both the jurisdiction and themselves, to accept federal court jurisdiction to enforce these responsibilities.

(d) Assistance to units of general local government from a State: When a state gives assistance to a local government, the state performs the Secretary's role described in subsection (b), and doing so satisfies the Secretary's responsibilities under that subsection.

(e) Categorical exemptions: These activity types are automatically exempt from NEPA environmental review and need no further review: (1) new construction infill housing projects; (2) buying real property for affordable housing; (3) rehabilitation projects done under section 12742(a)(1); and (4) new construction projects of 15 units or fewer.

(f) Removing duplicative reviews: (1) In general — as far as practical and legal, the Secretary must make sure a project that already had an environmental review under this section is not reviewed again just because other federal funding sources are added, swapped, or reallocated, as long as the project's scope, scale, and location stay basically the same. (2) Coordination — the Secretary must set regulations coordinating environmental review with other federal agencies, to streamline compliance and avoid needless duplication under NEPA and other laws. (3) Recognition of prior reviews — a project cannot be made to go through another review under this section if a substantially similar review was already done by an entity designated under section 5304(g)(1), or another entity the Secretary decides has equivalent authority, as long as the project's scope, scale, and location stay basically the same.