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Not sure why you would ask this here as the answer is quite easily found using your favorite web browser.I wrote an answer and realized it wasn’t short. So here is a short answer. If, based on experience and the proposed actions designed to meet your PURPOSE AND NEED, you are certain that there will be a potential for SIGNIFICANT IMPACT to the environment, then you will begin preparing an ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT (EIS). Last I knew, a typical EIS cost around $1M and took about 18 months to complete.If, however, you know there will be some potential impact to the environment (that cannot be covered by a CATEX), then you will start by preparing an ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT (EA).If the result of the EA is a FINDING OF NO SIGNIFICANT IMPACT (FONSI), then - assuming you meet all the public notification requirements - your NEPA requirements are completed and you can proceed with your PROPOSED ACTION. Keeping in mind that your EA may be challenged in court. ALSO, once you start actually start doing the actions that make up the PROPOSED ACTION that was analyzed in your EA you must make certain that your actions do not deviate - with respect to their environment impact - from what was analyzed. If it seems that they will, then you may need to perform supplemental analysis and public notifications to remain within NEPA compliance.If the result of the EA is that there is the potential for a SIGNIFICANT IMPACT to the environment, then an EIS will need to be prepared. Or, you can go back and see if there are some other ALTERNATIVE ACTIONS that will meet your PURPOSE AND NEED that you failed to think of before. OR, there may be some MITIGATING ACTIONS that you MUST COMMIT TO that can result in a PROPOSED ACTION that no longer has the potential for a significant impact to the environment, an d thus you can issue a FONSI.So, I hope that answers your question. As I said, there are good NEPA resources online. Each FEDERAL entity looks at them a little differently, but you can go to the EPA and look at what they have as a good starting place. EPA must review and score every EIS. Depending, the EPA may or may not review/comment on EAs.Below is what I started writing. It is off-the-top-of-my-head, and not finished. Because of my SEID, I am now exhausted and have to stop writing. If there is any interest, I may come back and finish. More likely, if there is interest in SPECIFIC questions, I can give my opinion on those questions.Under NEPA most actions taken by the FEDERAL government require NEPA review. With respect to NEPA, the requirement is to determine the POTENTIAL for environmental impact. The NEPA regulations make it clear that the review is to be an integral part of the DECISION-MAKING process.So, for actions a FEDERAL entity takes all the time - such as painting runways - they can develop what is called a Categorical Exclusion (CATEX). SO they do the analysis given specific parameters (e.g., so many gallons of paint with specified properties) and determine that there won’t be any SIGNIFICANT IMPACT to the environment. They file that with the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) and go through the necessary regulatory hoops and they now have their own (maybe it is the USAF or the FAA) CATEX for painting runways. And now everytime they plan to paint a runway they can use that CATEX to “check the box” for the environmental part of the process. Different FEDERAL entities have different name for there “checklists.”I went through the CATEX because it is the lowest level NEPA document. The next two levels, the EA and the EIS, are the ones you asked about. Remember, in one sense, the purpose of all 3 types of NEPA documents is to determine if there is the potential for a significant impact to the environment from the planned action. AND that information needs to be part of the information available to the DECISION MAKER when he/she makes the decision to take the action. That information ALSO needs to be available to the PUBLIC. At the CATEX level, the CATEX only needs to be on file in case someone from the public wants to verify that NEPA was satisfied. They may need to file a FOIA to get it, but they can get it.Recall CATEX was for actions with some level of environmental impact that are taken again and again. And analysis done once and done. For actions that do not meet this requirement can choose to either an Environmental Assessment or an Environmental Impact Statement. If you read the NEPA regulations you see the the EA was an afterthought; however, it has become an integral - and more often used - part of the process.At this point I want to point out again that NEPA was meant to be part of the planning process. So the first step of the planning process should be a well defined PURPOSE AND NEED. All too often the FEDERAL entity has done a considerable amount of planning before they think to start the NEPA process. The NEPA regulations say that they should not have made irrevocable commitment of resources before they incorporate NEPA into their planning process. The point I am getting to is that given a well crafted PURPOSE AND NEED there should be more than one way - or OPTION - to achieve it. AND IT IS HELPING THE DECISION MAKER DECIDE BETWEEN THESE OPTIONS IS WHAT NEPA WAS DESIGNED TO DO!!!!NOTE: I am mostly giving answer about how NEPA was designed to work, and mostly ignoring the many ways it can deviate from this in practice.OK, so FEDERAL entity has a PURPOSE AND NEED and they are planning on how to meet those. The NEPA regulations require that if there is the potential for a SIGNIFICANT IMPACT to the environment, then an ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT (EIS) must be done. These have MANY requirements for public scoping meeting, etc. Last I knew cost of an EIS was typically $1M and time to completely typically about 18 months. IF the action is that of the FEDERAL entity, then they have to pay for the EIS (or EA). However, the action being taken by the FEDERAL entity can be as a regulatory entity over an action planned/proposed by a commercial entity. In that case, it is the commercial entity that has to pay for the NEPA analysis. A common example is the Army Corp of Engineers having to issue a permit for construction that will impact wetlands.Given the cost and the length if time required to prepare an EIS, most would prefer to avoid one if they can. So, if you realistically think that you may be able to avoid having a potentially SIGNIFICANT IMPACT to the environment, you can choose to generate an ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT (EA). The EA has fewer requirements, particularly for informing the public. Instead of public scoping meeting and public meeting to take comments on the DRAFT EIS, the requirements for the EA is a notice in the legal notices part of newspaper that cover the various areas of potential impact (plural both because different options may affect different areas AND because different resources - such as air quality, water quality, etc. - may potentially impact different areas).