(a) Action means a project, program or other activity, including the adoption of an official policy or formal plan, that is undertaken, authorized, adopted or approved by, or subject to the control or responsibility of NSF, the decommissioning of a physical plant or facility, and any change in the scope or intensity of a project, program or action.

(b) Antarctica means the area south of 60 degrees south latitude.

(c) Antarctic environment means the natural and physical environment of Antarctica and its dependent and associated ecosystems, but excludes social, economic and other environments.

(d) Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting means a meeting of the Parties to the Antarctic Treaty, held pursuant to Article IX(1) of the Treaty.

(e) Comprehensive Environmental Evaluation or CEE means a study of the reasonably foreseeable potential effects of a proposed action on the antarctic environment, prepared in accordance with the provisions of § 641.18, and includes all comments thereon received during the comment period described in § 641.18(c). A Comprehensive Environmental Evaluation shall constitute an environmental impact statement for purposes of the Executive Order.

(f) Environmental Action Memorandum means a document briefly describing a proposed action and its potential impacts, if any, on the antarctic environment prepared by the responsible official when he or she determines that a proposed action will have less than a minor or transitory impact on the Antarctic environment.

(g) Environmental document means an initial environmental evaluation or a comprehensive environmental evaluation.

(h) Environmental review means the environmental review required by the provisions of this part, and includes preliminary environmental review and preparation of an environmental document, and review by the parties to the Protocol, and committees established under the Protocol for that purpose, and the public, as applicable.

(i) Executive Order means Executive Order 12114, Environmental Effects Abroad of Major Federal Actions, 44 FR 1957.

(j) Initial Environmental Evaluation or IEE means a study of the reasonably foreseeable potential effects of a proposed action on the antarctic environment, prepared in accordance with the provisions of § 641.17.

(k) Preliminary environmental review means the environmental review described in § 641.15(a).

(l) Protocol means the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, adopted on October 4, 1991, in Madrid, at the fourth session of the Eleventh Special Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting and signed by the United States on that date, and all annexes thereto.

(m) Responsible official means the Director of the Office of Polar Programs, or any NSF employee(s) designated by the Director to be principally responsible for the preparation of environmental action memoranda or environmental documents under this part.

(n) Treaty means the Antarctic Treaty signed in Washington, D.C., on December 1, 1959, T.I.A.S No. 4780.