The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal agencies to undertake an assessment of the environmental effects of their proposed actions prior to making decisions. Two major purposes of the environmental review process are:

1. Citizen involvement.
2. Better informed decisions.

The NEPA process began for the Boardman to Hemingway Transmission Line Project when Idaho Power submitted applications to the BLM and USFS to construct a 500 kilovolt transmission line across portions of federal public lands.

In fall 2008, the BLM and the USFS launched the NEPA process with scoping meetings and a comment period. Comments received during the public scoping period, from September 12, 2008 through February 20, 2009, were included in the Public Scoping Report. The report documents outreach efforts, summarizes the comments received and identifies issues raised and suggested alternatives.

The federal agencies have re-opened scoping on Idaho Power’s revised proposed route. BLM and USFS will publish a revised Notice of Intent and will conduct additional public scoping meetings to provide information on the project and request comments. View the calendar for meeting information.

BLM and participating agencies will use scoping comments to help identify issue areas and a range of reasonable alternatives for analysis, which will be documented in the environmental impact statement (EIS). The federal agencies will use the analysis in the EIS, together with other requirements, to determine whether to approve or deny Idaho Power’s application for the B2H Project as well as identify mitigation measures.

For more information on the NEPA process, check out A Citizen's Guide to the NEPA [PDF, 931 KB] and review the process diagram shown below.

This Web site is the joint Boardman to Hemingway Transmission Line Project site. While information contained on this site is approved for posting by the BLM, it is not the official BLM Web site. Visit the BLM Web site.