[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 45, Volume 3]
[Revised as of October 1, 2002]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 45CFR641.14]

[Page 184-185]
 
                        TITLE 45--PUBLIC WELFARE
 
                 CHAPTER VI--NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
 
PART 641--ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT PROCEDURES FOR PROPOSED NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION ACTIONS IN ANTARCTICA--Table of Contents
 
Sec. 641.14  Definitions.

    As used in these procedures, the term:
    (a) Action means a project, program or other activity, including the 
adoption of an official policy or formal plan, that is undertaken, 
authorized, adopted or approved by, or subject to the control or 
responsibility of NSF, the decommissioning of a physical plant or 
facility, and any change in the scope or intensity of a project, program 
or action.
    (b) Antarctica means the area south of 60 degrees south latitude.
    (c) Antarctic environment means the natural and physical environment 
of Antarctica and its dependent and associated ecosystems, but excludes 
social, economic and other environments.
    (d) Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting means a meeting of the 
Parties to the Antarctic Treaty, held pursuant to Article IX(1) of the 
Treaty.
    (e) Comprehensive Environmental Evaluation or CEE means a study of 
the reasonably foreseeable potential effects of a proposed action on the 
antarctic environment, prepared in accordance with the provisions of 
Sec. 641.18, and includes all comments thereon received during the 
comment period described in Sec. 641.18(c). A Comprehensive 
Environmental Evaluation shall constitute an environmental impact 
statement for purposes of the Executive Order.
    (f) Environmental Action Memorandum means a document briefly 
describing a proposed action and its potential impacts, if any, on the 
antarctic environment prepared by the responsible official when he or 
she determines that a proposed action will have less than a minor or 
transitory impact on the Antarctic environment.
    (g) Environmental document means an initial environmental evaluation 
or a

[[Page 185]]

comprehensive environmental evaluation.
    (h) Environmental review means the environmental review required by 
the provisions of this part, and includes preliminary environmental 
review and preparation of an environmental document, and review by the 
parties to the Protocol, and committees established under the Protocol 
for that purpose, and the public, as applicable.
    (i) Executive Order means Executive Order 12114, Environmental 
Effects Abroad of Major Federal Actions, 44 FR 1957.
    (j) Initial Environmental Evaluation or IEE means a study of the 
reasonably foreseeable potential effects of a proposed action on the 
antarctic environment, prepared in accordance with the provisions of 
Sec. 641.17.
    (k) Preliminary environmental review means the environmental review 
described in Sec. 641.15(a).
    (l) Protocol means the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the 
Antarctic Treaty, adopted on October 4, 1991, in Madrid, at the fourth 
session of the Eleventh Special Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting 
and signed by the United States on that date, and all annexes thereto.
    (m) Responsible official means the Director of the Office of Polar 
Programs, or any NSF employee(s) designated by the Director to be 
principally responsible for the preparation of environmental action 
memoranda or environmental documents under this part.
    (n) Treaty means the Antarctic Treaty signed in Washington, D.C., on 
December 1, 1959, T.I.A.S No. 4780.

[57 FR 40339, Sept. 3, 1992, as amended at 59 FR 37438, July 22, 1994]