“Changes in fundamental forest policy should be made with the cautious precision of a whittling knife. Instead, the Forest Service is slashing forest laws with a high-powered chain saw,” Rahall said.  “This new regulation is just the latest action.”

The Forest Service issued a final rule today that will categorically exclude forest management plans from the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) if they are updated or fundamentally altered.

Under NEPA, public involvement and environmental analyses are required whenever the Forest Service undertakes changes to forest management plans – a process that occurs for each U.S. Forest every 15 years. However, under this new rule, any update, or significant change, would not be subject to NEPA review.

“The result of this new regulation is that the people will have even less ability to know about, let alone weigh in on, management of their U.S. Forest lands,” explained Rahall.

Proponents of the new rule argue that development of management plans must be streamlined and that NEPA reviews would be better conducted on individual projects. But Rahall, along with other Members of Congress, including Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM), has objected to this proposal, noting that excluding forest management plans from NEPA would result in an inability to evaluate cumulative effects on evolving land management decisions.

Additionally, given recent history, it is highly unlikely that individual projects would undergo NEPA review.  A recent GAO report found that almost 72 percent of vegetation management projects were approved using categorical exclusions – thus exempted from NEPA. This means that the public was cut out of having a say in almost three quarters of major federal actions affecting our nation’s forests.

“Issuance of this regulation proves, once again, that the Forest Service does not care one whit about the opinions and desires of the American people,” stated Rahall.

“For six years, the administration has been chopping away at the basic tenants of the National Forest Management Act – sound and sustainable forest planning,” he added.

Since 2000, the U.S. Forest Service has eroded balanced forest planning through regulations passed without proper public input. This includes eliminating the ability of the public to appeal illegal logging, doing away with consulting federal wildlife officials to protect endangered species, wiping out wildlife and watershed protections, and undermining science by abolishing scientific review.

“As if that weren’t enough, they now seek to limit the right of the public to know about, and have a say in, how their forest heritage is managed,” argued Rahall. 

“The Forest Service should be taken to the woodshed,” he concluded.