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Department of Veterans Affairs.
Notice of Intent to prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, open a public scoping period, and hold public scoping meetings.
This Notice provides information to Federal, state, and local agencies; Native American tribes; and other interested persons regarding VA's intent to prepare a Programmatic EIS (PEIS) to evaluate the potential environmental impacts for the proposed relocation of the VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System (VASNHCS) Ioannis A. Lougaris VA Medical Center (Reno VAMC) services and facilities in Reno, Nevada. Programmatic National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documents are used to assess the environmental impacts of proposed policies, plans, programs, or projects for which subsequent actions will be implemented based on the programmatic analyses, providing the foundation for subsequent additional analysis of specific actions that “tier” from the programmatic document. Tiering allows an agency to eliminate repetitive discussions of the same issues, focus on the actual issues ripe for decision, and exclude from consideration issues already decided or not yet ripe for environmental review. Programmatic NEPA analysis is appropriate in cases where an agency is ( printed page 26415) adopting a large multi-phased program, plans or suite of projects, allowing an agency to make informed decisions timed to coincide with meaningful points in agency planning and decision making. Such is the case with the proposed relocation of the VASNHCS Reno VAMC services and facilities in Reno, Nevada ( i.e., project specific siting/construction/operation of necessary services and supporting facilities, leasing needs, and site opportunities). The analyses for these actions will be broadly discussed in the programmatic document (PEIS) and the specific analyses deferred to the subsequent tiered NEPA document(s) when ripe for environmental review.
VA invites interested agencies, organizations, Native American tribes, and members of the public to submit comments to inform VA on the significant issues to be analyzed in depth in the PEIS ( e.g., range of actions, alternatives, environmental impacts). The public scoping period starts with the publication of this Notice in the Federal Register . To ensure sufficient time to consider issues identified during the public scoping period, comments should be submitted by one of the methods listed under ADDRESSES no later than August 4, 2025. VA plans to hold public scoping meetings at the City of Reno McKinley Arts & Cultural Center, located at 925 Riverside Dr, Reno, Nevada 89503 on Tuesday, July 15, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. and on Wednesday, July 16, 2025, at 9:00 a.m. VA anticipates releasing the Draft PEIS for a 45-day public review and comment period in late summer 2026. VA will notify stakeholders via email/mail, publish a notice of availability of the Draft PEIS in the Federal Register and the Reno Gazette-Journal, and solicit comments at that time. Following the close of the Draft PEIS public comment period, VA will prepare the Final PEIS and Record of Decision (ROD). VA anticipates issuing the Final PEIS for public review in late winter of 2026 within 2 years of the publication of this Notice and signing the ROD in early spring 2027.
Comments must be submitted through www.regulations.gov. Except as provided below, comments received before the close of the comment period will be available at www.regulations.gov for public viewing, inspection, or copying, including any personally identifiable or confidential business information that is included in a comment. All comments received before the close of the comment period will be posted on the following website as soon as possible after they have been received: www.regulations.gov. VA will not post on www.regulations.gov public comments that make threats to individuals or institutions or suggest that the commenter will take actions to harm the individual. VA encourages individuals not to submit duplicative comments. We will post acceptable comments from multiple unique commenters even if the content is identical or nearly identical to other comments. Any public comment received after the comment period's closing date is considered late and will not be considered.
English (US) ·