Runners for Public Lands recently submitted comments opposing a U.S. Forest Service proposal that would dramatically shorten the public’s chance to weigh in on public-land projects. Under the proposal, people would have just 10 days to comment on environmental assessments and only 20 days to comment on environmental impact statements—the larger, more complicated projects—with similarly short timelines for formal objections.

We argued that those deadlines are simply too short for runners, local communities, Tribes, scientists, trail groups, and other stakeholders to meaningfully review complex proposals before decisions are made.

The Importance of Preserving Public Input

In our comments, we emphasized that public review is not just a box-checking exercise. It is one of the main ways better decisions get made on trails, recreation access, race permits, restoration projects, and other on-the-ground actions that affect how we experience public lands. When people who know these landscapes well have time to engage, projects are often improved, impacts to wildlife and cultural resources are better addressed, and decisions are more durable in the long run. Compressing the process that severely would shut out many of the very people who know these landscapes best and could lead to more conflict, more legal challenges, and worse outcomes for both recreation and conservation.

RPL urged the Forest Service to keep review timelines that actually match the complexity of the project, preserve meaningful objection opportunities, improve outreach and accessibility, and focus on solving internal staffing and process problems instead of cutting the public out. RPL believes that public lands work best when the public still has a real voice in how they are managed. Strong public input leads to better public-land decisions, and we are pushing back on efforts to rush that process and shut people out.

Featured image: A group running through a national forest in Colorado. Photo by Sergio Garces