Public Comments Count - Keep Them Coming

Public comments count — keep them coming

By WILL PATTIZ

Public Comments Count - Keep Them Coming

Before the Forest Service logs a drainage or the Bureau of Land Management leases a parcel to a driller, the agency must publish what it intends to do, allow the public to respond, and answer the objections. That arrangement is 56 years old and 640 million acres of federal land run on it. But on July 3 of last year, five federal departments filed rules in the Federal Register that gutted their...