OSMRE NEPA HANDBOOK 1 JULY 2019

APPENDIX 6.1 DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR CATEGORICAL 

EXCLUSIONS

43 CFR Part 46

§ 46.205 Actions categorically excluded from further NEPA review.

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. 

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

§ 46.210 List of Departmental 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. 
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(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; 
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(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.