The United States (U.S.) Marine Corps has prepared a Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA is a law that requires federal agencies to analyze the potential environmental impacts of their proposals and provides opportunity for the public to provide input on the environmental analysis. An EIS is the most detailed analysis prescribed by regulations implementing NEPA.
The Marine Corps published a Notice of Availability for the Final EIS in the Federal Register on June 18, 2026. The Marine Corps will observe a 30-day period before finalizing the NEPA Record of Decision (ROD). The ROD will announce the Marine Corps decision and selected alternative to conduct land-based training for ongoing and evolving joint expeditionary warfare tactics, specifically, distributed operations on the island of Tinian in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). View the Final EIS.
The purpose of the Proposed Action is to reduce joint training deficiencies for U.S. Armed Forces in the Indo-Pacific area of operations. The Proposed Action is needed to enable U.S. Armed Forces to meet their individual mandates in Title 10 to be trained and equipped to protect U.S. national security.
In developing this Proposed Action, the Marine Corps evaluated the changes in the way U.S. Armed Forces currently prepares for future conflicts and carefully considered the comments and suggestions submitted on the 2015 Draft EIS/Overseas EIS and from collaborative CNMI government coordination meetings. The Marine Corps’ revised proposed training concept for the Military Lease Area on Tinian fully supports military training requirements and recognizes the importance of minimizing the impacts of military training on the residents of Tinian. First, the training concept was purposefully designed to locate live-fire ranges within the northern portion of the island, away from the village of San Jose, recreational beaches, tourism areas, and cultural and natural resources. Second, understanding that public access to the Military Lease Area was important to the community, the Marine Corps would establish an on-island Training Area and Range Operations Command (Range Control) to foster communication between the community and military to allow access to the Military Lease Area when it may safely be accommodated, even during ongoing training events.
After developing this training concept, between January 2020 and September 2024, the Marine Corps engaged the CNMI government in a series of virtual and in-person discussions on a revised training concept and revised environmental analysis. In August 2023, the Marine Corps held public information sharing sessions on the islands of Tinian, Saipan, and Rota to inform the public at large of the revised training concept.
To accommodate the proposed training, new training infrastructure would create a physical and virtual training environment to include two live-fire ranges, two surface radar towers, improvements to North Field, the development of Landing Zones, an expeditionary Base Camp at the former U.S. Agency for Global Media site, and biosecurity facilities. A communications system to support training would be established through the reuse of existing communications towers located on Tinian and Saipan, with portable sensors and emitters in the Military Lease Area. To ensure training unit and public safety during training, an on-island Training Area and Range Operations Command (Range Control) would be established. Range Control would schedule training and coordinate with local officials and the public.
Under Alternative 1, land-based military training on Tinian, including live-fire training at two ranges, would be conducted. The training tempo under Alternative 1 would increase by approximately 15 percent over the No Action Alternative. New training infrastructure would create a physical and virtual training environment on the island.
Alternative 2 would include the same land-based training on Tinian as described for Alternative 1, but the training tempo would only increase by 5 percent over the No Action Alternative. The same infrastructure proposed under Alternative 1 would be constructed.
Under the No Action Alternative, land-based military training on Tinian would continue at the current tempo and intensity identified for actions previously analyzed under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). No construction is associated with the No Action Alternative.
For more information View the Final EIS.
