What is an EIR/EIS?
These acronyms stand for Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The EIR/EIS discusses the environmental impacts associated with a project. An EIR refers to an Environmental Impact Report prepared under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). An EIS is an Environmental Impact Statement prepared under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Because HSR is such a large project, several EIR/EIS documents have been, and will be, prepared as a part of this “tiered” process to fully examine all issues related to this project. The first phase was a statewide program level EIR/EIS that was certified in November 2005. This document contained a relatively high level review that examined the proposed statewide system. In 2007, the CHSRA, in cooperation with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), prepared a program level EIR/EIS that specifically focused on the components of HSR in the the San Francisco Bay Area to Central Valley region. That
