What We Do
Office of Justice Programs NEPA Compliance
Site-Specific NEPA Analysis | Programmatic NEPA Analysis | Federal Grantee Assistance | Training | Website Enhancement | NEPA Compliance | Streamlining
The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) is a branch of the U.S. Department of Justice with a mission to provide leadership, resources, and solutions for creating safe, just, and engaged communities by providing financial and technical assistance to federal, state, local, and tribal justice systems.
TCG supports OJP with National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and related environmental and historic preservation compliance requirements for individual grant projects, as well as comprehensive NEPA program improvements. Our support includes, but is not limited to:
- Outreach and technical assistance for processing NEPA compliance for hundreds of individual grant projects.
- Development of project-specific Environmental Assessments (EAs).
- Section 7 and Section 106 consultations in support of project compliance.
- NEPA training for OJP staff and NEPA website enhancement.
- Updates to, identification of, and recommendations for process improvements to the OJP NEPA implementing regulations and NEPA programs.
TCG works directly with applicants in challenging contexts and is currently supporting tribal applicants from rural Alaska on multiple new construction projects. Our services include reviewing grant scopes of work and project descriptions, coordinating with applicants to obtain accurate, up-to-date project and site information, advising on compliance pathways and the implicated laws (e.g., NEPA, ESA, §404, NHPA, and RCRA), and, in some cases, preparing Environmental Assessments and associated compliance documents.
Our technical assistance includes sufficiency reviews of NEPA checklist compliance documents and Environmental Assessments for OJP coordinators and applicants, along with recommendations on environmental review timelines used by BJA applicants and third parties to develop EAs. We annually process and review NEPA checklists and supporting documents for compliance and provide targeted review and comments on individual EAs to ensure NEPA requirements are met. We also maintain continuous tracking and coordination of NEPA checklists and EAs, delivering weekly and monthly status reports to NEPA coordinators and the contract COR.
TCG’s support has helped agency staff and grantees apply categorical exclusions (CATEXs) correctly and consistently. We developed a memorandum clarifying the existing CATEXs tied to grant-funded activities and eliminated the backlog of NEPA compliance documents, so reviews are prompt and grantees, particularly tribal grantees, receive funding sooner.
TCG reviews projects of all scales for BJA grantees, from small construction projects such as 500-square-foot prefabricated buildings to major ones involving phased, campus-wide developments with multi-level buildings, parking garages, and other ancillary facilities.