A snippet from the article:
Now the Forest Service, manager of our nation’s 154 national forests, has decided that they could be much more “efficient” if they simply quit communicating with the public.
Under their current proposal (open for comments until August 12), 93.3% of all Forest Service decisions will lose all the current advance notice and public comment requirements
This change includes the 80.1% of all Forest Service projects and permits that are approved under what is called a Categorical Exclusion, meaning the agency figures the project or permit will have no individual or cumulative significant effects on the environment.
It proposes to stop giving advance notice of these projects and an opportunity to tell the agency that it’s missed an important harm (e.g., dying pinyon). The proposed change also converts projects that were EAs due to their greater potential for harm (13.2%), into categorical exclusions. No analysis; no public input.
The Forest Service gives examples of what they will consider a categorical exclusion: