Comment by September 23 on the plan to open forest roads by default

Why this Matters

Four days after announcing the Roadless Rule rescission, the Forest Service filed a second rulemaking. On August 24, 2026 it published a notice of intent to rewrite its travel management regulations at 36 CFR part 212 and to prepare an environmental impact statement. Comments close Wednesday, September 23 at 8:59 p.m. Pacific, which is the time Regulations.gov itself displays on the docket.

The change is a reversal of the default. In the agency's own words, the proposed rule would establish "a presumption that existing roads, trails, airfields, trailheads, and other access routes and points on National Forest System lands are open to appropriate public use unless closure or restriction is required." Today the presumption runs the other way: routes are closed to motor vehicles unless the Forest Service has designated them open. The proposal would also require annual review of every route that is closed or highly restricted, and would let commonly available data sets, including aerial imagery, serve as evidence that a route exists.

Becky Lynn, writing at The Riparian Zone, reads the practical effect this way: the burden flips from justifying an opening to justifying a closure, at an agency already short of money and staff, and the affirmative duty to minimize harm to soil, water and wildlife does not survive the rewrite. She also notes the comment window is thirty days with no scoping meetings, which is unusual for an action at environmental impact statement scale.

Noise alone moves animals. A 2024 study funded by the Forest Service, as reported by The Riparian Zone, found wildlife were 4.7 times more likely to flee and stayed vigilant 2.9 times longer when exposed to recreation noise, and that abundance at the site was 1.5 times lower the following week. Elk were the most sensitive, with a 47 percent chance of fleeing. Off-highway vehicle noise drew the longest vigilance of any recreation type measured.

This is the second of two roadless-related dockets open at the same time, and they are separate filings with separate deadlines. Commenting on one does not comment on the other. The Roadless Rule rescission closes September 21; this one closes September 23.

Steps to Take

Step 1

Read the notice. The Federal Register notice, published August 24, 2026, carries the agency's own summary of what it intends to change. Everything filed in the rulemaking sits on Regulations.gov under docket FS-2026-0100.

Step 2

Get the background in plain language. Manifest Destiny, but with a Motor at The Riparian Zone walks through the history from the 1972 executive order through the 2005 travel management rule, what the presumption flip actually does, and who stands to profit.

Step 3

Submit your comment on the Regulations.gov comment form, which opens straight to the writing box. The docket closes Wednesday, September 23 at 8:59 p.m. Pacific. Regulations.gov publishes tips on what makes a comment substantive: raise a specific issue and give a reason or evidence the agency has to respond to.

Step 4

Give them something specific to answer. Three openings that are already visible in the notice itself. One, if the duty to minimize harm to soil, water and wildlife is dropped from designation decisions, the environmental impact statement should analyze what that changes and it currently does not. Two, a thirty-day window with no scoping meetings is thin for an action at environmental impact statement scale, and that is a procedural objection worth putting on the record. Three, the annual review of closed and highly restricted routes creates work at an agency whose maintenance backlog is already about 11.2 billion dollars, so the analysis should say who does it and with what.

Step 5

Say what you actually do out there. Where you walk, fish, hunt, pick mushrooms, or take your kids. Whether quiet is part of why you go. Emotion is not what gets a comment discounted; a comment with nothing specific in it is.

Step 6

Comment on the Roadless Rule too, if you have not. It is a separate docket with its own deadline of September 21, and our Roadless Rule call to action has the steps, the maps and the sample letters. The two rules were filed four days apart and they work on the same ground.

Step 7

Pass it on. This one landed with far less notice than the Roadless announcement, which is part of why it needs the word spread. Send it to your neighbors and bring it up at your next gathering.

Sample Text

Option 1

I am commenting on the notice of intent to revise the Forest Service travel management regulations at 36 CFR part 212, docket FS-2026-0100.

My objection is to the reversal of the presumption. Under the current rule, motor vehicle use is limited to routes the agency has affirmatively designated as open. The proposed rule would presume that existing routes are open unless a closure is required or specifically justified. That moves the burden of proof from the use to the protection, and it does so at an agency that is short of both funding and staff to carry that burden.

The environmental impact statement should analyze what happens when a route stays open by default because no one had the capacity to document a justification for closing it. That is a foreseeable outcome of the proposed presumption and it is not the same thing as a decision to open the route.

I ask the Forest Service to retain the current designation framework, in which routes are open only where the agency has determined that they should be.

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Option 2

I am commenting on docket FS-2026-0100, the proposed revision of the Forest Service travel management regulations.

I am concerned about the loss of the minimization criteria. The existing framework requires the agency to minimize damage to soil, watershed, vegetation, and other forest resources, and to minimize conflicts among uses, when designating routes. If the revised rule does not carry that duty forward, the draft environmental impact statement needs to say so plainly and analyze the effect, rather than leaving it to be discovered after the fact.

I would also note the process. A thirty-day comment window with no scoping meetings is a short runway for an action at environmental impact statement scale, on a rule that governs motor vehicle use across the entire National Forest System. I ask the agency to extend the comment period and to hold public scoping meetings.

Roads and motorized use are not free. They carry sediment into streams, they displace wildlife, and they add to a deferred maintenance backlog the agency already cannot fund.

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Option 3

I live on the Oregon Coast, and I am commenting on docket FS-2026-0100.

The Siuslaw National Forest is laced with roads left over from decades of logging. Which of those routes are open, to what kind of vehicle, and under what conditions is exactly what this rule decides. A presumption that they are open unless someone documents a reason to close them is a very different forest from the one we have now.

The agency's own research on recreation noise found that wildlife flee more often, stay vigilant longer, and are less abundant in the following week when motorized noise is introduced. Elk were the most sensitive species measured. The environmental impact statement should analyze noise as an effect of the presumption change, not only the physical footprint of the routes themselves.

Please retain the existing designation framework and the duty to minimize harm to soil, water, and wildlife.

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