Electricity Reliability and Forest Protection Act
This bill requires the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture (USDA), with respect to lands under their respective jurisdictions, to provide direction under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 to ensure that all existing and future rights-of-way for electrical transmission and distribution facilities on such lands include requirements for utility vegetation management, facility inspection, and operation and maintenance activities that:
Interior and the USDA shall give facility owners and operators the option to submit to the appropriate Department a vegetation management, facility inspection, and operation and maintenance plan.
Interior and the USDA shall apply its categorical exclusion process under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) to plans developed under this Act on existing transmission and distribution rights-of-way located on lands under their respective jurisdictions.
(A "categorical exclusion" under NEPA is a category of actions which do not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the human environment and which have been found to have no such effect in procedures adopted by a federal agency in implementing environmental regulations and for which, therefore, neither an Environmental Assessment nor an Environmental Impact Statement is required.)
| Action Date | Type | Text | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-10-06 | Calendars | Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 219. | House floor actions |
| 2015-10-06 | Discharge | Committee on Agriculture discharged. | House floor actions |
| 2015-10-06 | Committee | Reported (Amended) by the Committee on Natural Resources. H. Rept. 114-287, Part I. | House floor actions |
| 2015-06-11 | Committee | Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 22 - 15. | House committee actions |
| 2015-06-11 | Committee | Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held. | House committee actions |
| 2015-06-11 | Committee | Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans Discharged. | House committee actions |
| 2015-06-11 | Committee | Subcommittee on Federal Lands Discharged. | House committee actions |
| 2015-06-10 | Committee | Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held. | House committee actions |
| 2015-06-08 | Committee | Referred to the Subcommittee on Conservation and Forestry. | House committee actions |
| 2015-06-04 | Committee | Referred to the Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans. | House committee actions |
| 2015-06-04 | Committee | Referred to the Subcommittee on Federal Lands. | House committee actions |
| 2015-05-15 | IntroReferral | Referred to the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committee on Agriculture, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned. | House floor actions |
| 2015-05-15 | IntroReferral | Referred to the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committee on Agriculture, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned. | House floor actions |
| 2015-05-15 | IntroReferral | Introduced in House | Library of Congress |