Section 106 Consultation

The review process specified under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act is being followed for the Solar Energy Development Programmatic EIS (PEIS).

The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) requires federal agencies to consider the effect of their undertakings on historic properties. Regulations issued by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation under Section 106 of the NHPA specify the required review process. (For further explanation of Section 106 of the NHPA, see: http://www.achp.gov/work106.html.)

An important part of the Section 106 review process is consultation with the appropriate State Historic Preservation Officer(s) (SHPOs), all Federally recognized Native American tribes that have an interest in the area being affected, and with any persons or organizations that are interested in the cultural resources that could be impacted by the project.

Conducting the Section 106 Review

The PEIS process attempts to identify the type and extent of the impacts associated with the development of solar energy resources in the six Western states. Through this PEIS, the BLM is considering whether to establish a Bureau-wide solar energy development program to supplement or replace the existing policy, and to amend land use plans in the six-state study area to adopt the new program. In addition, the BLM expects to identify BLM-administered land that may be environmentally suitable for solar energy development and land that would be excluded from such development. For the Solar Energy Development PEIS, compliance with Section 106 includes a programmatic assessment of the types of historic properties known and likely to occur within the designated lands and the development of recommendations to avoid, minimize, or mitigate impacts to historic properties that will guide the agencies in the review of any subsequent development projects. A second phase of the Section 106 review process that is beyond the scope of the current PEIS will occur when a development project is proposed within these designated lands; at that time, specific projects will be subject to cultural inventories and site significance evaluations under Section 106 review and mitigative actions will be determined in consultation with the appropriate parties.

The Agencies are consulting with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPOs), and the six Western SHPOs concerning the PEIS and are in the process of developing a Programmatic Agreement detailing this phased approach to compliance with Section 106. Government-to-government consultation has been initiated with Tribes and will be continued throughout the process; further information on this important part of the process is available on the Government-to-Government Consultation page of this Web site.

The PEIS will provide the agency managers with information on how the various alternative actions would impact the environment. Once the PEIS is completed, the BLM will sign a Record of Decision (ROD). The ROD will amend land use plans to designate lands for future solar energy development. As development proceeds, BLM will conduct Section 106 compliance and NEPA reviews for individual proposed projects.