OMB Watch submitted comments Aug. 16 on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) draft management directive on National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) provisions. OMB Watch found the directive severely threatened public access to information under the law, particularly in the proposed Categorical Exclusions and information shielded from NEPA review. In the management directive's Section 6.2, Classified or Protected Information, DHS lays out the provisions for restricting information from NEPA-related documents. The new categories of information that DHS proposes to withhold from the public -- Critical Infrastructure Information (CII), Sensitive Security Information (SSI), and Sensitive But Unclassified information -- are overly broad and only vaguely understood. DHS actually lacks the statutory authority or legal framework to restrict some of these information categories. Proposing to restrict broad categories of information certainly does not encourage public involvement in proposals. By establishing provisions that would allow, and possibly even encourage, DHS officials to withhold tremendous amounts of environmental information from the public, the agency is violating the intentions of the NEPA process. It seems the agency views information only as a danger instead of as a vital democratic tool for keeping the public informed and safe. DHS's directive also proposes creating inappropriate new Categorical Exclusions for many different activities and projects. These exclusions would eliminate public disclosure and participation in the NEPA process by outright exempting the listed activities from any environmental review. The public would not receive access to EIS documents or EA reports because DHS would never produce them for the excluded activities. These CEs are the most complete restriction on public involvement in NEPA processes. For a more detailed analysis of the directive, read OMB Watch's comments to DHS.