If you have access to the categorical exclusion procedures used by an agency in which you're interested, use those procedures. If not, you can access the General Services Administration (GSA) electronic environmental guide at http://www.gsa.gov/pbs/pt/call-in/envbook/ebook.htm (Note: GSA is one of the very few agencies that provides its list of categorical exclusions on-line.)

ASSIGNMENT

In the NEPA procedures used (student-preferred agency or GSA), find the list of categorical exclusions, and the system the agency uses to apply them. Review these.

Imagine yourself an employee of the agency, whose job it is to decide whether the following are categorical exclusions. You have NO budget to support this work, other than a small portion of your own salary.

* Purchase five (5) new cars for the agency motor pool.

* Remodel office to accommodate a consolidated data processing center.

* Dispose of five acres of undeveloped surplus land.

* Any other real or hypothetical project you want to select.

For each project, consider the following questions:

What challenges do you face in applying the agency's CX criteria to each of the above actions?

What can you do to address these challenges?

Now imagine yourself an outside party concerned about one of the above projects and consider the following questions:

What challenges do you face in getting the agency, from your perspective, to consider cultural resources properly in its decision about whether the project should be categorically excluded?

What can you do to address these challenges?

Referring as needed to the NEPA pages, prepare a five-page paper describing your thoughts and conclusions. In instructor-led training, submit your paper to the instructor for review and critique. In self-training, refer to the cheat sheet