Bureau of Customs and Border Protection September 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

A Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) and Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) in the Land and Sea Environments are available to the public for review. The Final PEA documents a review of potential environmental impacts. Based on the Final PEA, a determination was made that the travel documents proposed for WHTI and use of the travel documents for implementation of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA) will not have a significant impact on the quality of the human environment such that it would require further analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). The Final PEA addresses the substantive comments received on the Draft PEA during the public comment period. The Final PEA resulted in a FONSI that describes the programmatic action alternatives to be used as the approach to meet the requirements of WHTI. The Final PEA and FONSI are made available to the public in accordance with NEPA and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations for implementing NEPA.

Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq., (NEPA), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to identify and assess the potential impacts associated with a proposal to construct and operate tactical infrastructure along approximately 70 miles of the international border between the United States and Mexico within the Office of Border Patrol's (OBP's) Rio Grande Valley Sector, Texas (the Proposed Action). The purpose of the Proposed Action is to further CBP's ability to gain effective control of the border by denying pedestrian and other access in high priority sections of OBP's Rio Grande Valley Sector. CBP is the decision-making agency for the Proposed Action. Notice is hereby given that the public scoping process has been initiated to prepare an EIS that will address the impacts and alternatives of the Proposed Action. The purpose of the scoping process is to solicit public comments regarding the range of issues, including potential impacts and alternatives that should be addressed in the EIS.

This notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) proposes to require the pilot of any private aircraft arriving in the United States from a foreign port or location or departing the United States for a foreign port or location to transmit to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) an advance electronic transmission of information regarding each individual traveling onboard the aircraft. This NPRM also proposes to add data elements to the existing notice of arrival requirements and proposes a new notice of departure requirement. The notice of arrival and notice of departure information would be required to be submitted to CBP through an approved electronic data interchange system in the same transmission as the corresponding arrival or departure manifest information. Under the NPRM, this data must be received by CBP no later than 60 minutes before an arriving private aircraft departs from a foreign location and no later than 60 minutes before a private aircraft departs a United States airport or location for a foreign port or place. Finally, this NPRM proposes to clarify landing rights procedures and departure clearance procedures as well as expressly setting forth CBP's authority to restrict aircraft from landing in the United States based on security and/or risk assessments; or, based on those assessments, to specifically designate and limit the airports from where aircraft may land or depart.