Staff says proposed changes would streamline environmental reviews; public comment windows to remain but be less frequent

A staff member said proposed changes would keep public review for environmental impact statements and for environmental assessments tied to resource management plan amendments while allowing higher‑level approvals and expanded use of categorical exclusions to reduce how often public comment windows occur.

The staff member said the current practice typically includes an initial 30‑day public scoping period, a 30‑day public review of a draft document, issuance of a final decision and a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) where applicable, and then a 30‑day appeal period. "So this is meant to streamline projects and get them through the environmental review process a little bit quicker," the staff member said.

Under the changes described, scoping and public comment "can still happen for projects, for environmental assessments or below, but require higher level approvals, and therefore be less frequent," the staff member said. The speaker added that there "will be public review of environmental impact statements and there will be environmental or public review of environmental assessments with a resource management plan amendment associated with it."

The staff member also said the agency has been approved to use categorical exclusions in many cases but did not provide a clear total. The speaker said, "In all I think to this date we've accepted or been approved to use I think it's around 4 30 plus categorical exclusions as well," a phrasing that was not specified further during the recorded remarks.

A brief, unfinished remark appeared in the transcript: "Q fever comes from an animal. We cannot" — the speaker did not complete that sentence and did not provide additional context in the recorded segments.

No formal motions or votes were recorded in the provided transcript segments related to these remarks.