The Trump administration is dismantling the public’s ability to engage with federal land management decisions — an alarming shift with especially dire consequences for Pacific Northwest forests.
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which governs the environmental review process for public land management decisions and mandates public input in the review process, has been a repeat target for the administration. On June 30th, 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released an interim final rule changing NEPA implementation procedures for all of its agencies, including the Forest Service. These regulations come in response to the administration’s rescission of the Council of Environmental Quality’s NEPA regulations earlier this year (spurred by EO 14154, Unleashing American Energy) which prompted each agency to craft its own NEPA regulations without meaningful public or Tribal input during the development of the rule.
Sign our petition below to tell the US Department of Agriculture — Don’t Shut the Public Out of Public Lands.
The USDA NEPA implementation regulations strip away mechanisms for public input. The implementation regulations no longer require scoping, an early and essential process where an agency provides the public with notice of a potential project and identifies the potential environmental impacts. The regulations also no longer require public comment periods during the draft Environmental Assessment and Environmental Impact Statement stages. The agency will no longer be required to provide a Schedule of Proposed Actions to the public. These changes, which took effect July 3rd, 2025 with the interim final rule’s publication in the Federal Register, impact all 193 million acres of land that the Forest Service manages, including Mt. Hood, Willamette, Umpqua, Siuslaw, and Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forests.
SIGN THE PETITION BELOW TO TELL TRUMP — PUBLIC INPUT FOR PUBLIC LANDS!
