Comment on FR Doc # 2026-13281

The information contained in these handbooks is far more than simple guidance. It represents years of research, technical expertise, and public input that were specifically developed to ensure consistent, transparent, and accountable management of our public lands. Allowing Forest Service employees to disregard these standards without explanation or justification undermines the very programs they were created to support and weakens public confidence in the agency's decisions. Federal law requires the agency to provide notice and an opportunity for public comment on the standards, criteria, and guidelines that govern Forest Service programs. This proposed rule creates a pathway for current and future administrations to quietly eliminate or rewrite internal direction on environmental review, permit administration, resource protection, and public participation without the transparency and accountability that the notice-and-comment process was designed to provide. Decisions that affect public lands should remain subject to meaningful public oversight, not be removed from it. The proposal also lowers the standard for public notification by allowing notices to be posted in virtually any "broadly accessible public forum," including agency webpages that are often incomplete, difficult to locate, or rarely monitored by the public. Replacing established notice systems such as the Federal Register or newspapers of record will inevitably result in fewer people learning about important agency actions. Tribes, conservation organizations such as Friends of the Inyo, permit holders, and members of the public who rely on formal notice systems deserve better than a process that makes transparency optional instead of expected. The agency claims these changes are intended to reduce procedural burdens, encourage innovation, and return decision-making authority to employees closest to the land. That justification is difficult to reconcile with the agency's own ongoing reorganization, which is consolidating decision-making and moving leadership farther from the communities and landscapes they are responsible for managing. At the same time, this proposal reduces meaningful opportunities for local communities and the public to participate in decisions that directly affect their public lands. Good governance is built on transparency, accountability, and public participation—not on reducing oversight or making it easier to bypass long-established safeguards. These changes do not strengthen public land management; they weaken the public's ability to understand, participate in, and hold the agency accountable for the decisions it makes.