Comment on FR Doc # 2026-13281

The information in these handbooks is not just “advice;” it has been carefully developed through research and public input. To give Forest Service employees the complete discretion to ignore these directives without justification undermines the programs themselves. Federal law requires the agency to provide notice and an opportunity to comment on “standards, criteria, and guidelines” applicable to Forest Service programs. This could allow this and future administrations to remove internal direction on environmental review, permit administration, resource protection, public participation, and more, all without the procedural scrutiny that currently comes with notice and comment. Public participation is key to the management of our public lands, and these decisions and approaches should not be removed from public hands. The proposed rule would also allow notices to be published in any “broadly accessible public forum,” including simple (and often incomplete) agency webpages, rather than the formal channels such as the Federal Register or newspapers of record, as is the current standard. This would make agency actions easier to miss, especially for those who rely on formal notice systems to track developments across federal systems, such as Tribes, conservation groups like Friends of the Inyo, and other concerned members of the public. In the agency’s press statement, it is said the changes are meant to “redefine the agency’s manual and handbooks to reduce procedural burdens, encourage innovation, and return decision-making authority to employees closest to the land.” This argument falls flat when reorganization of the service itself is actively pulling decision makers away from the lands they are charged with and local input is poised to be ignored entirely.