# Forest Service 3 documents across 3 days of the archive, 0 of them final rules. The five most recent days are below. [HTML](https://downstream.sh/daily/agency/forest-service/) · [the long-form archive](https://downstream.sh/daily/agency/forest-service/archive.md) · [the daily issue](https://downstream.sh/daily/index.md) ## Dates this agency has set that have not yet arrived | Date | Offset | What | Document | Agency | |---|---|---|---|---| | 2026-09-21 | +17d | Comments close | [Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/20/2026-16965/special-areas-roadless-area-conservation) | Agriculture Department · Forest Service | | 2026-09-23 | +19d | Comments close | [Travel Management; National Forest System Lands](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/24/2026-17211/travel-management-national-forest-system-lands) | Agriculture Department · Forest Service | | 2026-11-12 | +69d | Comments close | [Secure Rural Schools Resource Advisory Committees](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/14/2026-16656/secure-rural-schools-resource-advisory-committees) | Agriculture Department · Forest Service | ## 24 August 2026 — 1 document [the whole issue for this day](https://downstream.sh/daily/2026-08-24.md) ### Travel Management; National Forest System Lands *Proposed Rule* — Agriculture Department · Forest Service The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is initiating an environmental impact statement and rulemaking to revise the Forest Service's travel management regulations, 36 CFR part 212. The proposed action would establish a uniform national policy favoring increased access while simplifying regulatory requirements and preserving local decision-making. The proposed access rule would establish a national policy with 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 by applicable law, valid existing rights, or another governing instrument, or supported by specific, documented and justifiable reasons based on science-based resource conditions, public safety, conflicts among uses, or maintenance and administrative capacity. Commonly available public data sets, including aerial imagery, may be used as evidence that a physical route or airfield exists or existed at a time relevant under the definition adopted in the proposed rule, but would not by themselves establish that the feature is part of the forest transportation system, that the Forest Service has jurisdiction or sufficient legal access, or that it is open to a particular public use. The proposed access rule would require annual review of all trails, roads, airfields, trailheads, and other access routes and points that are closed or highly restricted. The proposed access rule would establish processes and conditions for limited off-route motor vehicle use and other motorized equipment for, among other things, downed big-game retrieval, firewood collection and dispersed camping, and for designating areas for over-snow and other motorized recreation. The presumption embodied in the national policy would guide future decisions and would not itself change the legal status of any road, trail, airfield, trailhead, area, or other access route or point. Any change in lawful use resulting from a vehicle- or use-specific exemption would be limited to the scope and conditions expressly provided in the revised regulations. Existing motor vehicle use designations and maps would remain in effect until revised under the amended regulations. The environmental impact statement will evaluate the impacts of the proposed rule revisions and study alternatives for managing public access, including the motorized and other forms of access addressed by the proposed rule, on National Forest System lands in the context of multiple-use resource management. USDA invites written comments on alternatives, effects, and relevant information, studies, or analyses related to the proposal. - **Comments close** 23 September 2026 (in 19 days) 91 FR 54686 · FR Doc. 2026-17211 · [official PDF](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-08-24/pdf/2026-17211.pdf) · [federalregister.gov](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/24/2026-17211/travel-management-national-forest-system-lands) ## 20 August 2026 — 1 document [the whole issue for this day](https://downstream.sh/daily/2026-08-20.md) > The Forest Service proposed rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule governing road construction and timber harvesting on National Forest System lands. — via Downstream, https://downstream.sh/daily/agency/forest-service/#s-2026-08-20 *Machine-written by `claude-haiku-4-5-20251001` from the documents below.* ### Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation *Proposed Rule · significant under E.O. 12866* — Agriculture Department · Forest Service The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA or Department) is proposing to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (2001 Roadless Rule), which established broad prohibitions on road construction, road reconstruction, and timber harvesting within inventoried roadless areas on National Forest System lands. The intent of this proposed action is to reduce regulatory burden and return decisionmaking for the management of inventoried roadless areas to the land management planning process at the individual national forest level. Rescission of the national-level prohibitions provides responsible officials with flexibility to better guide management of National Forest System lands and respond to changing local resource conditions. The Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974, as amended by the National Forest Management Act of 1976, and the associated land management planning processes and plans are the appropriate and effective mechanisms to guide sustainable, integrated management of the resources within the plan areas in the context of the broader landscape, giving due consideration to the relative values of the various resources in particular areas. The USDA invites public comment on this proposed rule, the associated draft environmental impact statement, and cost benefit analysis, which are being published simultaneously. - **Comments close** 21 September 2026 (in 17 days) 91 FR 53827 · FR Doc. 2026-16965 · [official PDF](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-08-20/pdf/2026-16965.pdf) · [federalregister.gov](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/20/2026-16965/special-areas-roadless-area-conservation) ## 14 August 2026 — 1 document [the whole issue for this day](https://downstream.sh/daily/2026-08-14.md) > The Forest Service published a notice seeking nominations for Secure Rural Schools Resource Advisory Committees with comments closing November 12, 2026. — via Downstream, https://downstream.sh/daily/agency/forest-service/#s-2026-08-14 *Machine-written by `claude-haiku-4-5-20251001` from the documents below.* ### Secure Rural Schools Resource Advisory Committees *Notice* — Agriculture Department · Forest Service The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service is seeking nominations for the Secure Rural Schools Resource Advisory Committees (RAC) pursuant to the Secure Rural Schools (SRS) and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 and the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). - **Comments close** 12 November 2026 (in 69 days) 91 FR 52666 · FR Doc. 2026-16656 · [official PDF](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-08-14/pdf/2026-16656.pdf) · [federalregister.gov](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/14/2026-16656/secure-rural-schools-resource-advisory-committees) ## Ask an assistant instead Everything on this page is also a tool call. Add `mcp.downstream.sh` as an MCP server — no key, no account — then paste this: ``` Using the Downstream MCP server at mcp.downstream.sh, call whats_new_since with agency "Forest Service" since 2026-08-14, then summarise what changed and list every deadline it created. ``` Reaches `whats_new_since`. The response carries its own citations and states what it is missing, including which dates it has no record for. --- Every document linked here is a work of the United States government and in the public domain. The Federal Register's HTML and XML renderings are unofficial; the PDF on each item is the official text, and that is the one to cite. Counts are arithmetic over published fields, dates are printed as filed, and titles are verbatim. Where we have nothing, this says nothing rather than estimating. The one-sentence agency summaries are machine-written from those same fields and are labelled where they appear. [Downstream](https://downstream.sh/) · [the essay](https://downstream.sh/essays/a-country-that-can-see.html) · [the daily issue](https://downstream.sh/daily/) · [MCP endpoint](https://mcp.downstream.sh)