This subpart provides supplemental instruction for determining major actions requiring an EIS and for determining actions that are categorically excluded from NEPA.

(a) The following proposals will normally require the preparation of an EIS:

(1) Establishment of major new refuges or wildlife management areas, fish hatcheries, and major additions to such installations.

(2) Master development and/or management plans for major new installations.

(3) Management plans for established installations where major new developments or substantial changes in management practices are proposed.

(b) If for any of these proposals it is initially decided not to prepare an EIS, an EA will be prepared in accordance with 40 CFR 1501.4(e)(2).

(a) General categorical exclusions. The following actions are categorical exclusions (CX). However, environmental documents will be prepared for individual actions subject to CX if the exceptions listed in Sec. 10010.62 apply.

(1) Personnel actions and investigations and personnel services contracts.

(2) Internal organizational charges and facility and office reductions and closings.

(3) Routine financial transactions, including such things as salaries and expenses, procurement contracts, guarantees, financial assistance, income transfers, audits, fees, bonds and royalties.

(4) Legal transactions, including such things as investigations, patents, claims, legal opinions, and judicial activities including their initiation, processing, settlement, appeal or compliance.

(5) Monitoring actions, including inspections, assessments, administrative hearings and decisions; when the regulations themselves or the instruments of regulations (leases, permits, licenses, etc.) have previously been covered by the NEPA process or exempt from it.

(6) Non-destructive data collection, inventory (including field, aerial and satellite surveying and mapping), study, and research activities.

(7) Routine and continuing government business, including such things as supervision, administration, activities having limited context and intensity, for example, activities of limited size and magnitude of short-term effects.

(8) Management formulation, allocation, transfer and reprogramming of the Commission's budget at all levels. This does not exclude the preparation of environmental documents for proposals included in the budget when otherwise required.

(9) Legislative proposals of an administrative or technical nature, including such things as changes in authorizations for appropriations, and minor boundary changes and land transactions; or having primarily economic, social, individual or institutional effects; and comments and reports on referrals of legislative proposals.

(10) Policies, directives, regulations, and guidelines of an administrative, financial, legal, technical, or procedural nature; or the environmental effects of which are too broad, speculative, or conjectural to lend themselves to meaningful analysis and will be subject later to the NEPA process, either collectively or case-by-case.

(11) Activities which are educational, informational, advisory or consultative to other agencies, public and private entities, visitors, individuals or the general public.

(12) Cooperative agreements and interagency agreements.

(b) Specific categorical exclusions. The following actions are categorical exclusions (CX).

(1) General:

(i) Changes or amendments to an approved action when such changes have no potential for causing substantial environmental impact.

(ii) Personnel training, environmental interpretation, public safety efforts and other educational activities.

(iii) The issuance and modification of procedures, including manuals, orders and field rules, when the impacts are limited to administrative or technological effects.

(iv) The acquisition of land or water rights in accordance with the Commission's procedures, when the acquisition is from a willing seller, the acquisition planning process has been performed in coordination with the affected public and essentially the existing use will be continued.

(2) Resource management:

(i) Research, inventory and information collection activities directly related to the conservation of fish and wildlife resources which involve negligible animal mortality or habitat destruction, and no introduction of either exotic organisms or contaminants.

(ii) The operation, maintenance and management of existing facilities and improvements (i.e. structures, roads), including renovations and replacements which result in no or only minor changes in the capacity, use or purpose of the affected facilities.

(iii) The addition of small structures or improvements in the area of existing facilities, which result in no or only minor changes in the capacity, use or purpose of the affected area.

(iv) The reintroduction (stocking) of native or established species into suitable habitat within their historic or established range.

(v) Minor changes in the amounts or types of public use on Commission managed land or land acquired with Commission funds, in accordance with existing regulations, management plans and procedures.

(vi) Consultation and technical assistance activities directly related to the conservation of fish and wildlife resources.

(3) Use of Commission-managed or funded lands:

(i) The issuance of special approvals for public use of Commission-managed land or land acquired with Commission funds, which maintains essentially the same level of use and does not continue a level of use that has resulted in adverse environmental effects.

(ii) Permitting a limited additional use of an existing right-of-way over Commission-managed land or land acquired with Commission funds, such as the addition of new power or telephone lines where no new structures or improvements are required, or the addition of buried lines.

(iii) The issuance or reissuance of rights-of-way and special use approvals for Commission-managed land or land acquired with Commission funds that result in no or negligible environmental effects.

(iv) The reissuance of grazing or agricultural use approvals for Commission-managed land or land acquired with Commission funds which do not increase the level of use nor continue a level of use that has resulted in adverse environmental effects.

(4) Funding for activities by others:

(i) Planning grants or other funding for planning activities and the administrative determination that plans were prepared in accordance with prescribed standards. However, when the plan is submitted to the Commission for implementation, the program proposed by the plan is subject to the NEPA process.

(ii) Grants or other funding for categorically excluded actions listed in paragraphs (b) (1) through (3) of this section.

(5) Inter-agency Initiatives: Actions where the Commission has concurrence or co-approval with another agency and the action is a categorical exclusion for that agency.

(6) Transfer of the operations and maintenance of Federal lands, water, or facilities to water districts, recreation agencies, fish and wildlife agencies, or other entities where the anticipated operation and maintenance activities are agreed to in a contract or a memorandum of agreement, follow approved Commission policy, and no major change in operation and maintenance is anticipated or a proposed major change in operation and maintenance has previously been the subject of an appropriate NEPA document.

The following exceptions apply to individual actions within categorical exclusions (CX). Environmental documents must be prepared for actions which may:

(a) Have significant adverse effects on public health or safety.

(b) Have adverse effects on such unique geographic characteristics as historic or cultural resources, parks, recreation or refuge lands, wilderness areas, wild or scenic rivers, sole or principal drinking water aquifers, prime farmlands, wetlands, floodplains, or ecologically significant or critical areas, including those listed on the Department of the Interior's National Register of Natural Landmarks.

(c) Have highly controversial environmental effects.

(d) Have highly uncertain and potentially significant environmental effects or involve unique or unknown environmental risks.

(e) Establish a precedent for future action or represent a decision in principle about future actions with potentially significant environmental effects.

(f) Be directly related to other actions with individually insignificant but cumulatively significant environmental effects.

(g) Have adverse effects on properties listed or eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

(h) Have adverse effects on species listed or proposed to be listed on the List of Endangered or Threatened Species, or have adverse effects on designated Critical Habitat for these species.

(i) Require compliance with Executive Order 12988 (Floodplain Management), Executive Order 11990 (Protection of Wetlands), or the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act. However, an action may be categorically excluded following applicable reviews if the action is found to be in conformance with the applicable law or executive order.

(j) Threaten to violate a Federal, State, local or tribal law or requirement imposed for the protection of the environment.