One of the components in doing Environmental Reports for USDA Rural Development is making sure other federal agencies agree that your project is not violating environmental standards they must enforce. One example is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (USFWS).
USFWS is responsible to ensure no endangered species are being impacted by your project. For example, they have identified 43 endangered and threatened species of amphibians within the US and if one of these critters is living around your project there may be a problem.
When we complete an environmental report for USDA Rural Development projects, one of the boxes we are checking is to be sure little white whiptails or the Blue Ridge gray-cheeked salamander are not keeping an elementary school or a fire station from being built.