Comments closed August 14
Defend the Park Service's core wilderness policy
National Park Service
- What
- The National Park Service is rewriting its core wilderness management rules, and the public has a short window to weigh in.
- Where
- The notice names no place; see the agency’s own words under Case.
- How much
- Wilderness areas inside national parks could lose strong protections if the revised policy weakens how the NPS identifies, plans for, and stewards these lands.
- Decided
- Comments closed August 14, 2026. No decision document is on file yet.Date from Federal Register ↗, read October 29, 2026.
Where these four lines come from
- WhatOur plain-English read of the Federal Register 2026-11958 ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words under Case.
- WhereThe places and states the notice names, as PLAN read them.
- How muchThe first sentence of our What’s at risk read of the notice; the whole read is under Case.
- DecidedAugust 14, 2026, from Federal Register, the notice's DATES field (federalregister.gov API) ↗: “Comments must be received or postmarked on or before 11:59 pm ET on August 14, 2026.”. Read October 29, 2026. The decision document is the one on file in PLAN’s record.
- Read from PLAN’s record November 9, 2026.
What the proposal said, and what the decision did
No figure from the proposal has been checked against the decision on this fight yet. What the record does hold is the issues ledger below.
No decision document is on PLAN’s record for this fight yet. When the agency’s decision lands, what it answered goes here.
Affects public lands
The National Park Service is rewriting its core wilderness management rules, and the public has a short window to weigh in.
What’s at risk
If this goes through
Our plain-English read of the official notice ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words below.
In the agency’s own words
The National Park Service (NPS) seeks public comment on Director's Order #41: Wilderness Stewardship, which provides policy direction for the identification, planning, stewardship, and administration of wilderness managed by the NPS. Comments are now being accepted from the public, and local, State, Tribal, and Federal agencies.
Who signs it
The notice names no signer PLAN could read. PLAN names a decision-maker only when the document names one.
The ground
The window has closed, so there’s no watch to set on it here.
In court on this ground
This fight isn’t bound to a land unit in PLAN’s record yet, so there are no court cases to show for its ground.
Who holds the vote
PLAN’s record doesn’t tie a member of Congress to this fight yet. The scorecard grades the votes and bills that decide public lands; nothing joins a vote or a bill to this decision, so there’s no member to name here without guessing.
See how your members vote ↗Know an open comment period we are missing, or spotted a wrong deadline? .
More fights that need you
Go deeper, free
See how your members of Congress vote on public lands
Every representative, graded on the votes that decide the fate of parks, forests, and refuges.
Open ↗The mapSee the places under active threat
A live map of the parks, monuments, and wild country in the crosshairs right now.
Open ↗A wrong fact, a dead link, a form that wouldn’t take your letter: one tap and it comes to the people who build PLAN, with this fight attached.