Theater Missile Defensetmd Programmatic Life Cycle

This Environmental Impact Statement provides a discussion of the potential environmental impacts over the life cycle of the proposed Theater Missile Defense Program and its alternatives. This Programmatic EIS provides an analysis of the potential environmental impacts over the life cycle (research, development and testing; production; basing NOT DEPLOYMENT; and eventual decommissioning) of the proposed TMD program and its Alternatives, including the No- Action Alternative. It is intended to be a first tier document and to serve as a basis from which future, more detailed environmental documentation could be prepared to assess the site and program specific environmental impacts. TMD is designed to provide regional wide area defenses to counter missile threats from improved conventional, chemical, biological, or nuclear ballistic, cruise, or air-to-surface guided missiles, and air-breathing threats, that endanger deployed United States forces, as well as our friends and allies throughout the world. The Proposed Action is to conduct research and development activities that would give the United States the capability to produce and deploy an integrated, comprehensive TMD system which would include some mix of three components: Active Defense, Counterforce, and Passive Defense. The component mix will be based on not only environmental factors, but also such criteria as mission needs, feasibility, lethality, mobility, technical maturity, and costs. This Programmatic EIS also contains an analysis of four Alternatives to the Proposed Action: Improve Active Defense Only (Alternative 1), Improve Counterforce Only (Alternative 2), Improve Passive Defense Only (Alternative 3), and No-Action.