Environment

Forest Service wants to cut form letters
Plan aimed at public comments on forests

Dan Hansen
Staff writer

Never before has it been so easy for Americans to comment to policy-makers about the issues they consider important.

Think the federal government should spend more money on sex education? The National Abortion Rights Action League has a form letter you can send to lawmakers with the click of your mouse.

Think Medicare should cover prescription drugs? Go to the AARP Web site and have an e-mail message sent in your name to your senator and representatives. You don't even have to know their names.

Care about snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park? The Sierra Club and American Council of Snowmobile Associations both have letters ready to go to the National Park Service. Pick the one that best represents your point of view.

Now, the U.S. Forest Service is questioning the value of such impersonal correspondence, whether delivered electronically or by U.S. Postal Service.

Under a proposal that may not survive to become public policy, the agency would disregard "form letters, check-off lists, pre-printed post cards or similar duplicative materials" when it takes public comment about forest plans. Those documents only add to the volume of comments received without contributing to the quality of debate, said Dave Barone, Forest Service ecosystem planning manager in Washington, D.C.

"It really doesn't matter if we hear (a comment) once or a thousand times. We're going to address it," Barone said. "It's not a vote-taking thing."

The rule change would apply only when national forests are writing or revising long-term forest plans. Those documents help determine which types of uses will be emphasized in specific patches of woods -- recreation, logging or wildlife habitat, for instance.

The form-letter ban would not apply when a forest is taking comments about a proposed timber sale or other action. But other Bush administration proposals could limit comments in some instances.

Taken together with those other proposed restrictions, the form-letter ban is ominous to environmentalists.

"They're weeding out as much public input and participation as they see fit," said Rein Attemann of the Spokane-based Lands Council. "It's a huge detriment to groups like ours."

Forest Service officials say the mix of original versus form letters received during comment periods varies with the scope of an issue.

Environmentalists who defend Clinton-era rules restricting development of roadless areas frequently note that the rules drew 1.7million written comments -- more than for any other environmental issue. That's true, Barone said, but 96 percent of those comments were form letters or petitions.

Form letters are rare when the Idaho Panhandle National Forest takes comments about a purely local issue, such as timber sales, forest spokesman Dave O'Brien said.

"We tend to get pretty substantive comments from people," he said.

The proposed rule is part of a document called the National Forest System Land and Resources Management Planning Rule, which would streamline the way forest plans are written. But Barone doesn't think the form-letter ban will survive when a final rule is adopted this fall.

About 50,000 people commented about the 40-page document before a 120-day comment period ended April 7. A good share of those opposed section 219.19(d), the form-letter ban.

Forest Service officials could not say Wednesday how many of those 50,000 correspondences were form letters.

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