The Agency published an ANPR on January 3, 2018 (83 FR 302). The Agency received 34,674 comments in response to the ANPR, of which 1,229 were unique. Most of the unique comments expressed support for the Agency’s effort to identify efficiencies in the NEPA process. The unique comments in support of the ANPR all generally acknowledged that there is room for increased efficiency in the Agency’s NEPA process. Some of these comments expressed unqualified support for increasing efficiency; other comments supported the Agency’s goals, but included caveats that these gains should not come at a cost to public involvement or conservation of natural resources.
There were three form letter campaigns in response to the ANPR. Approximately 33,000 form letter comments came from two form letter campaigns, which urged the Forest Service to reject any proposal to weaken the Agency’s NEPA process. The Forest Service received about 600 comments from a third form letter campaign in favor of the Agency’s efficiency goals as stated in the ANPR. The Agency will not regard form letters as ‘‘votes’’ as to whether the proposed rule should go forward.
1200 unique letters may sound like a lot, but my experience with content analysis is that it does provide an opportunity to get your ideas before the people making the decision. The way this usually works is that some group analyzes comments by what they’re about (which part of the proposed regulation), and then staff go in to brief the decision maker, who is likely to consult with interest groups of various kinds, and then makes the calls. If lots of unique letters suggest a change, that is data that may well go to the decision maker.
The more general “don’t cut the public out” “don’t weaken NEPA” are probably not as helpful as recommendations for specific changes. Even people who don’t want category 26 for example, based on wanting more public involvement or analysis, could ask for exactly what about public involvement or analysis they think is missing, and how to bump it up (notice and comment? require the appeal regs apply?). That’s what I tried to do for category 26. Asking the agency to drop the proposal is probably not as helpful.
Here is the link to submit your comments. They are due August 26th, so we have time for more discussion and suggestions. It’s really simple to do, they could listen to you and make a better decision from our comments. I encourage you all to consider doing it, at least for one or two issues of concern or support. One more thing, re: any vitriol about the Forest Service or the Administration. The human being reading the comments doesn’t have any power either and the people with the power generally won’t be reading the comments directly (as opposed to summaries). If you don’t find the argument “don’t say mean things” compelling, remember that taxpayers share in paying for federal employees’ stress as part of their health benefits.
Finally, if you find an interesting idea in other comments you see, again, feel free to post it below.
OTOH — if some proposals are so deeply flawed in their premise (as I believe this is) simply picking out 1 or 2 particular items to respond to as “how to improve”, weakens the case if one is opposing the bulk of the entire regulation. As I recall, the Bush admin canned the entire 2001 planning reg and went back to the drawing board rather than tweaking sections. Dire circumstances call for dire measures.
Jim, what exactly do you mean by “deeply flawed”- I’ve never seen a reg produced by the FS that wasn’t a compendium of things I like, things I don’t like and a bunch of “whatever” s.
As a pragmatist, the reason the Bush Admin could can the 2001 Planning Reg was that it was designed by the previous administration. Again, as a pragmatist, it seems like if the people who want to change the NEPA regs in the first place, are the same people who are reading the comments (or who have staff reporting to them on the comments) they are not likely to say “oh, the usual suspects don’t like this one, I guess we’ll give up.”
Dire measures, really? It’s a NEPA reg.
“Dire measures, really? It’s a NEPA reg.” That’s pretty dismissive of what many refer to as a “bedrock environmental law.” (And as long as courts give the agencies deference to write regulations, the regs are the law.) I’d be happy to bet this is important enough to end up in court.
Yes, it’s a bedrock procedural statute that has it’s own CEQ NEPA regs, and agency NEPA regs can only operate under that blanket. Even the humble 70 acre CE went to court and randomly won – to me, just the like the HFI CE’s randomly lost. So I can’t say we know if these will win or lose, because as a wise FS NEPA expert once said “going to court is a crapshoot.”
Here’s a letter in opposition to the proposed NEPA regs, signed by a raft of scientists, professors, students, and others:
https://www.forestlegacies.org/images/scientist-letters/FS_NEPA_Comments_Scientists_Final.pdf