The U.S. Forest Service proposed a new rule over the weekend that could chip away at the role the public plays in guiding how our national forests are managed. Under the current process, most major projects or decisions made by the USFS (as well as other federal agencies) are opened to public comment, usually for a period of 30 to 45 days. This allows individuals and larger organizations to submit formal comments in support or opposition of any given proposal. It is the public’s best — and really only — opportunity to guide the decisions that affect federal public lands.
The recently proposed rule, however, would give the public less opportunity to provide input on forest management decisions. The included revisions would ease notification requirements and allow the USFS to quietly post proposals to a government website, instead of publishing them in a newspaper of record or providing additional notice to interested parties. The revisions would also give the public less time to comment, while changing how those comments are analyzed and distributed.
As part of the agency’s announcement Friday, Forest Chief Tom Schultz said these changes “will ensure the Forest Service can act swiftly to deliver projects that build healthier, more resilient forests and infrastructure.” The USFS did not immediately respond to written questions about the proposal.
This is all concerning for conservation groups, public-land advocates, and others who view public engagement as an important part of the democratic process.
“This is the fount of the public’s right to participate,” says Sam Evans, who leads the National Forests and Parks Program for the Southern Environmental Law Center. “These principles go all the way back to Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the Forest Service, and his famous eleven maxims. One of those is: ‘It is more trouble to consult the public than to ignore them, but that is what you were hired for.’”
The proposal is not surprising, according to Evans, who has seen public participation rights diminished over the last year. He says the dismantling that began during the first Trump administration — and was not properly counteracted by the Biden administration — has entered a new phase. This includes the gutting of the National Environmental Policy Act. One of the current administration’s first moves around public-land policy was to revoke the blanket NEPA regulations that have long guided federal agencies.
“What this means is they’ve taken away all of the other requirements for public participation, and now these are the only ones left. And they want to weaken them, too,” Evans says. “This idea that public input and opposition are process inefficiencies has become gospel with this administration — and within the Forest Service — and they are looking for every opportunity to get rid of it.”
A key element of the proposed rule is the shortening of public-comment periods. Under the proposal, the window to file public comments would be reduced from 30 days to 10 days for actions requiring an environmental assessment (EA), and from 45 to 20 days for actions requiring an environmental impact statement (EIS). EAs are typically required for Forest Service projects that could have moderate impacts on the environment, such as the building of a new trail or a timber sale. The more intensive EIS process is for projects with more significant impacts, like a proposed mine or major infrastructure addition.
“These principles go all the way back to Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the Forest Service, and his famous eleven maxims. One of those is: ‘It is more trouble to consult the public than to ignore them, but that is what you were hired for.’”
—Sam Evans, National Forests and Parks Program for the Southern Environmental Law Center
Another key change, according to Friday’s announcement, would involve “expanding the use of modern technology” in the submission and distribution of public comments. Evans says this suggests the use of machines and AI to read and filter comments before they can be seen by human officials.
“This is where it gets a little bit Orwellian,” he explains. “It means that a human with expertise and local knowledge probably won’t read your comment. They’re going to instead get a spreadsheet, or something like that, with a very sanitized summary of what all the public comments included … Which is a really dangerous way to think about processing public comments, because it takes the job away from the agency and puts it in a black box.”
Other key elements in the proposal include the elimination of review period extensions, and the establishment of page limits and “more focused content requirements.” The agency says these changes would avoid delays and ensure that objections are concise and relevant. The rule would also eliminate the role of a “reviewing officer,” meaning the official who is overseeing a proposal would be the same one who reviews public comments and objections to it.
Read Next: Why the Roadless Rule Is Important for Hunters and Anglers
These changes to the process are especially poignant at the current moment, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture is moving to rescind the Roadless Rule — a move that 99 percent of Americans opposed during a public comment period in September. A separate effort that is being led by Congress would also roll back a mineral withdrawal on national forest land near the Boundary Waters. That withdrawal was enacted in 2023 after a 30-day public comment period, during which 98 percent of respondents voiced their support for the protections.
Americans now have until March 9 to provide comment on the proposed public-comment rule at regulations.gov. The total comment period is about 30 days — at least, for now.
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