Washington, DC - Consistent with the President's commitment to "disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use," DOE announced today a new policy requiring all DOE program and field offices to document certain categorical exclusion determinations and post them online. Categorical exclusions are classes of actions that DOE has determined by regulation do not have a significant effect on the environment, and, therefore, normally do not require detailed environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Under the new policy, DOE program and field offices must document a determination that an action is "categorically excluded" and post the determination online. With this policy, DOE will become one of the first federal agencies to make Categorical Exclusion documentation available to the public on the internet. For more information, see DOE's NEPA website.