EPA's Vessel General Permit and Small Vessel General

section 7(a)(2) of the ESA).
We organize our programmatic consultations on general permits using a sequence of questions
that focus on the agency’s decision-making process, in general, and the five critical components
we just described. Those questions focus on whether and to what degree an Agency has
structured a program so that the Agency is in a position to know or reliably estimate whether
endangered or threatened species or designated critical habitat are likely to be (a) exposed to
stressors associated with specific actions a program would authorize, fund, or carry out; (b)
respond to that exposure; and (c) experience individual-level, population-level, or species-level
risks as a result of those responses. Further, we ask whether or to what degree an agency
actively gathers that information, whether or to what degree an agency incorporates that
information into its decision-making processes about specific actions, and whether or to what
degree an agency changes the decisions it makes about specific actions based on that
information.
Application of this Approach in this Consultation
As we have already discussed, we treat the issuance of the proposed VGPs as “programs” that
would authorize discharges of pollutants over a five-year period. As we described earlier, during
general permit consultations we ask whether or to what degree the programs:
� Collect or will have access to the information necessary to allow it to know how the
actions it permits affect listed resources;
� Evaluate that information to assess how its actions have affected endangered species,
threatened species, and designated critical habitat; and
� Uses its authorities to bring those activities into compliance.
Specific questions we ask about the proposed VGPs are:
1. Scope
Has the general permit been structured to reliably estimate the probable number, location and
timing of the discharges that would be authorized by the program?
2. Stressors
Has the general permit been structured to reliably estimate the physical, chemical, or biotic
stressors that are likely to be produced as a direct or indirect result of the discharges that would
be authorized (that is, the stressors produced by the actual discharges to waters of the U.S.)?
3. Overlap
Has the general permit been structured to reliably estimate whether or to what degree specific
endangered or threatened species or designated critical habitat are likely to be exposed to
potentially harmful impacts that the proposed permit would authorize?
4. Monitoring/Feedback
Has the general permit been structured to identify, collect, and analyze information about
authorized actions that may have exposed endangered or threatened species or designated critical
habitat to stressors at concentrations, intensities, durations, or frequencies that are known or
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