Rural Utilities Service July 27, 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Rural Utilities Service, hereinafter referred to as RUS and/or the Agency, has issued a Record of Decision (ROD) for the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed Deer Creek Station Energy Facility project (Project) in Brookings and Deuel Counties, South Dakota. The Administrator of RUS has signed the ROD, which is effective upon signing. The EIS was prepared pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) (U.S.C. 4231 et seq.) and in accordance with the Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ) regulations for implementing the procedural provisions of NEPA (40 CFR Parts 1500-1508), RUS's NEPA implementing regulations (7 CFR Part 1794), and the Western Area Power Administration's (Western) NEPA implementing regulations (10 CFR Part 1021). Western was the lead federal agency in preparation of the EIS as defined at 40 CFR 1501.5; RUS was a cooperating agency. The purpose of the EIS was to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of and alternatives to Basin Electric Power Cooperative's (Basin Electric) application for a RUS loan and a Western interconnection agreement to construct the proposed Project. The proposed Project's facility would include a new natural gas-fired combustion turbine set, a heat recovery steam generator, and a steam turbine generator set.