(a) For any potentially major proposed Federal action (40 CFR 1508.23 and 1508.18) that may have potentially significant environmental impacts, bureaus must coordinate, as early as feasible, with:

(1) Any other bureaus or Federal agencies, State, local, and tribal governments having jurisdiction by law or special expertise; and

(2) Appropriate Federal, State, local, and tribal governments authorized to develop and enforce environmental standards or to manage and protect natural resources or other aspects of the human environment.

(b) Bureaus must solicit the participation of all those persons or organizations that may be interested or affected as early as possible, such as at the time an application is received or when the bureau initiates the NEPA process for a proposed action.

(c) Bureaus should provide, where practicable, any appropriate community-based training to reduce costs, prevent delays, and facilitate and promote efficiency in the NEPA process.

(d) Bureaus should inform private or non-Federal applicants, to the extent feasible, of:

(1) Any appropriate environmental information that the applicants must include in their applications; and

(2) Any consultation with other Federal agencies, or State, local, or tribal governments that the applicant must accomplish before or during the application process.

(e) Bureaus must inform applicants as soon as practicable of any responsibility they will bear for funding environmental analyses associated with their proposals.

Categorical Exclusion means a category or kind of action that has no significant individual or cumulative effect on the quality of the human environment. See 40 CFR 1508.4.

(a) Except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section, if an action is covered by a Departmental categorical exclusion, the bureau is not required to prepare an environmental assessment (see subpart D of this part) or an environmental impact statement (see subpart E of this part). If a proposed action does not meet the criteria for any of the listed Departmental categorical exclusions or any of the individual bureau categorical exclusions, then the proposed action must be analyzed in an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement.

(b) The actions listed in section 46.210 are categorically excluded, Department-wide, from preparation of environmental assessments or environmental impact statements.

(c) The CEQ Regulations at 40 CFR 1508.4 require agency procedures to provide for extraordinary circumstances in which a normally excluded action may have a significant environmental effect and require additional analysis and action. Section 46.215 lists the extraordinary circumstances under which actions otherwise covered by a categorical exclusion require analyses under NEPA.

(1) Any action that is normally categorically excluded must be evaluated to determine whether it meets any of the extraordinary circumstances in section 46.215; if it does, further analysis and environmental documents must be prepared for the action.

(2) Bureaus must work within existing administrative frameworks, including any existing programmatic agreements, when deciding how to apply any of the section 46.215 extraordinary circumstances.

(d) Congress may establish categorical exclusions by legislation, in which case the terms of the legislation determine how to apply those categorical exclusions.

The following actions are categorically excluded under paragraph 46.205(b), unless any of the extraordinary circumstances in section 46.215 apply:

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

(b) Internal organizational changes and facility and bureau reductions and closings.

(c) Routine financial transactions including such things as salaries and expenses, procurement contracts (e.g., in accordance with applicable procedures and Executive Orders for sustainable or green procurement), guarantees, financial assistance, income transfers, audits, fees, bonds, and royalties.

(d) Departmental legal activities including, but not limited to, such things as arrests, investigations, patents, claims, and legal opinions. This does not include bringing judicial or administrative civil or criminal enforcement actions which are outside the scope of NEPA in accordance with 40 CFR 1508.18(a).

(e) Nondestructive data collection, inventory (including field, aerial, and satellite surveying and mapping), study, research, and monitoring activities.

(f) Routine and continuing government business, including such things as supervision, administration, operations, maintenance, renovations, and replacement activities having limited context and intensity (e.g., limited size and magnitude or short-term effects).

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

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

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

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

(k) Hazardous fuels reduction activities using prescribed fire not to exceed 4,500 acres, and mechanical methods for crushing, piling, thinning, pruning, cutting, chipping, mulching, and mowing, not to exceed 1,000 acres. Such activities:

(1) Shall be limited to areas—

(i) In wildland-urban interface; and

(ii) Condition Classes 2 or 3 in Fire Regime Groups I, II, or III, outside the wildland-urban interface;

(2) Shall be identified through a collaborative framework as described in “A Collaborative Approach for Reducing Wildland Fire Risks to Communities and the Environment 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy Implementation Plan;”

(3) Shall be conducted consistent with bureau and Departmental procedures and applicable land and resource management plans;

(4) Shall not be conducted in wilderness areas or impair the suitability of wilderness study areas for preservation as wilderness; and

(5) Shall not include the use of herbicides or pesticides or the construction of new permanent roads or other new permanent infrastructure; and may include the sale of vegetative material if the primary purpose of the activity is hazardous fuels reduction. (Refer to the ESM Series for additional, required guidance.)

(l) Post-fire rehabilitation activities not to exceed 4,200 acres (such as tree planting, fence replacement, habitat restoration, heritage site restoration, repair of roads and trails, and repair of damage to minor facilities such as campgrounds) to repair or improve lands unlikely to recover to a management approved condition from wildland fire damage, or to repair or replace minor facilities damaged by fire. Such activities must comply with the following (Refer to the ESM Series for additional, required guidance.):

(1) Shall be conducted consistent with bureau and Departmental procedures and applicable land and resource management plans;

(2) Shall not include the use of herbicides or pesticides or the construction of new permanent roads or other new permanent infrastructure; and

(3) Shall be completed within three years following a wildland fire.

Extraordinary circumstances (see paragraph 46.205(c)) exist for individual actions within categorical exclusions that may meet any of the criteria listed in paragraphs (a) through (l) of this section. Applicability of extraordinary circumstances to categorical exclusions is determined by the Responsible Official.

(a) Have significant impacts on public health or safety.

(b) Have significant impacts on such natural resources and unique geographic characteristics as historic or cultural resources; park, recreation or refuge lands; wilderness areas; wild or scenic rivers; national natural landmarks; sole or principal drinking water aquifers; prime farmlands; wetlands (EO 11990); floodplains (EO 11988); national monuments; migratory birds; and other ecologically significant or critical areas.

(c) Have highly controversial environmental effects or involve unresolved conflicts concerning alternative uses of available resources [NEPA section 102(2)(E)].

(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) Have a direct relationship to other actions with individually insignificant but cumulatively significant environmental effects.

(g) Have significant impacts on properties listed, or eligible for listing, on the National Register of Historic Places as determined by the bureau.

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

(i) Violate a Federal law, or a State, local, or tribal law or requirement imposed for the protection of the environment.

(j) Have a disproportionately high and adverse effect on low income or minority populations (EO 12898).

(k) Limit access to and ceremonial use of Indian sacred sites on Federal lands by Indian religious practitioners or significantly adversely affect the physical integrity of such sacred sites (EO 13007).

(l) Contribute to the introduction, continued existence, or spread of noxious weeds or non-native invasive species known to occur in the area or actions that may promote the introduction, growth, or expansion of the range of such species (Federal Noxious Weed Control Act and EO 13112).

(a) In most cases, the Responsible Official should designate one Federal agency as the lead with the remaining Federal, State, tribal governments, and local agencies assuming the role of cooperating agency. In this manner, the other Federal, State, and local agencies can work to ensure that the NEPA document will meet their needs for adoption and application to their related decision(s).

(b) In some cases, a non-Federal agency (including a tribal government) must comply with State or local requirements that are comparable to the NEPA requirements. In these cases, the Responsible Official may designate the non-Federal agency as a joint lead agency. (See 40 CFR 1501.5 and 1506.2 for a description of the selection of lead agencies, the settlement of lead agency disputes, and the use of joint lead agencies.)

(c) In some cases, the Responsible Official may establish a joint lead relationship among several Federal agencies. If there is a joint lead, then one Federal agency must be identified as the agency responsible for filing the environmental impact statement with EPA.

(a) An “eligible governmental entity” is:

(1) Any Federal agency that is qualified to participate in the development of an environmental impact statement as provided for in 40 CFR 1501.6 and 1508.5 by virtue of its jurisdiction by law, as defined in 40 CFR 1508.15;

(2) Any Federal agency that is qualified to participate in the development of an environmental impact statement by virtue of its special expertise, as defined in 40 CFR 1508.26; or

(3) Any non-Federal agency (State, tribal, or local) with qualifications similar to those in paragraphs (a)(1) and (a)(2) of this section.

(b) Except as described in paragraph (c) of this section, the Responsible Official for the lead bureau must invite eligible governmental entities to participate as cooperating agencies when the bureau is developing an environmental impact statement.

(c) The Responsible Official for the lead bureau must consider any request by an eligible governmental entity to participate in a particular environmental impact statement as a cooperating agency. If the Responsible Official for the lead bureau denies a request, or determines it is inappropriate to extend an invitation, he or she must state the reasons in the environmental impact statement. Denial of a request or not extending an invitation for cooperating agency status is not subject to any internal administrative appeals process, nor is it a final agency action subject to review under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq.

(d) Bureaus should work with cooperating agencies to develop and adopt a memorandum of understanding that includes their respective roles, assignment of issues, schedules, and staff commitments so that the NEPA process remains on track and within the time schedule. Memoranda of understanding must be used in the case of non-Federal agencies and must include a commitment to maintain the confidentiality of documents and deliberations during the period prior to the public release by the bureau of any NEPA document, including drafts.

(e) The procedures of this section may be used for an environmental assessment.

In accordance with 40 CFR 1501.6, throughout the development of an environmental document, the lead bureau will collaborate, to the fullest extent possible, with all cooperating agencies concerning those issues relating to their jurisdiction and special expertise. Cooperating agencies may, by agreement with the lead bureau, help to do the following:

(a) Identify issues to be addressed;

(b) Arrange for the collection and/or assembly of necessary resource, environmental, social, economic, and institutional data;

(c) Analyze data;

(d) Develop alternatives;

(e) Evaluate alternatives and estimate the effects of implementing each alternative; and

(f) Carry out any other task necessary for the development of the environmental analysis and documentation.

(a) Scoping is a process that continues throughout the planning and early stages of preparation of an environmental impact statement. Scoping is required for an environmental impact statement; scoping may be helpful during preparation of an environmental assessment, but is not required (see paragraph 46.305(a) Public involvement in the environmental assessment process). For an environmental impact statement, bureaus must use scoping to engage State, local and tribal governments and the public in the early identification of concerns, potential impacts, relevant effects of past actions and possible alternative actions. Scoping is an opportunity to introduce and explain the interdisciplinary approach and solicit information as to additional disciplines that should be included. Scoping also provides an opportunity to bring agencies and applicants together to lay the groundwork for setting time limits, expediting reviews where possible, integrating other environmental reviews, and identifying any major obstacles that could delay the process. The Responsible Official shall determine whether, in some cases, the invitation requirement in 40 CFR 1501.7(a)(1) may be satisfied by including such an invitation in the notice of intent (NOI).

(b) In scoping meetings, newsletters, or by other communication methods appropriate to scoping, the lead agency must make it clear that the lead agency is ultimately responsible for determining the scope of an environmental impact statement and that suggestions obtained during scoping are only options for the bureau to consider.

(a) For each proposed action, on a case-by-case basis, bureaus shall:

(1) Set time limits from the start to the finish of the NEPA analysis and documentation, consistent with the requirements of 40 CFR 1501.8 and other legal obligations, including statutory and regulatory timeframes;

(2) Consult with cooperating agencies in setting time limits; and

(3) Encourage cooperating agencies to meet established time frames.

(b) Time limits should reflect the availability of Department and bureau personnel and funds. Efficiency of the NEPA process is dependent on the management capabilities of the lead bureau, which must assemble an interdisciplinary team and/or qualified staff appropriate to the type of project to be analyzed to ensure timely completion of NEPA documents.