The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is looking to hide Environmental Impact Statements (EIS), partially or in whole, from public disclosure. A June 14 directive published in the Federal Register would exempt the agency from a number of requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The directive applies to all agencies within DHS including the Transportation Security Administration, Energy Security and Assurance Program, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Coast Guard. DHS and its agencies deal with emergencies such a floods or oil spills, conduct research in science and technologies, and provide transportation services for hazardous waste. Under NEPA, federal agencies must consider the environmental impacts of proposed actions through the development of an Environmental Impact Statement. The public, as an affected stakeholder, plays a vital role in the developments of EIS and related analyses for any actions occurring in their communities. The DHS directive would hide information that is "classified, protected, proprietary, or other information that is exempted from disclosure by the Freedom of Information Act ..., critical infrastructure information ..., sensitive security information ..., and the DHS Management Directive 11042, 'Safeguarding Sensitive But Unclassified (For Official Use Only) Information'." This could include any EIS or its supporting analyses. While it is understandable that classified and proprietary information, or information sincerely vital to national security should sometimes remain secret, a blanket exemption like this is prone to abuse and would hide vast amounts of environmental information. Many of the categories of information DHS cites are new and poorly defined. Information that industry or the government does not want publicly available can be easily categorized under one of these exemptions. DHS claims that it will move any protected information from documents to an appendix for decision makers only; the public could review all other parts of information generated under NEPA. However, "if segregation would leave essentially meaningless material, the DHS elements will withhold the entire NEPA analysis from the public." DHS might render analysis "meaningless", but the public could find the information extremely useful. There are no procedures contained in the directive for how DHS will determine which pieces of environmental analysis to remove if it falls within an exemption, or how it will determine if the public finds the information meaningful. This directive is open for public comment until July 14. Additional Resources: SEJ WatchDog Tipsheet