PLANfor Public Lands
Public Lands Action Network
Federal agencies are deciding the fate of your public lands right now, in comment windows most people never see. We surface the ones that matter, explain what’s at stake, and help you act in two minutes.
14 close this week
across these decisions
Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite · public land, held in trust for you
Stop the repeal of the Roadless Rule
The Forest Service wants to erase the rule that has kept roads and logging out of 58 million acres of national forest.
The proposed Ambler Road corridor, Gates of the Arctic, Alaska
Sign up and every letter you write becomes a record: proof it posted, the agency’s answer, the right to object, and the ground you stood for.
- Proof it made itWe read the official docket and tell you when your letter posts.
- The agency’s answerWhen the decision comes, what they said to what you raised, page cited.
- The right to objectOn Forest Service projects, the next round belongs to the people who commented.
- Your recordThe ground you stood for, the badges you earned, a card you can share.
Free, no password, nothing published. Your email is the account. What you get, in full →
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Already wrote a letter and tapped “Tell me when it posts”? Use that address; it’s already your account.
Locked in, not open yet. The fights coming to a comment window near you.
Some decisions land before there is anything to comment on. A monument shrunk by proclamation takes no public comment, but the plan to open that land does, and that window is coming. We are watching for it. Tell us where to reach you and we send you straight to the comment page the day it opens.
Not open for comment yetBears Ears National Monument
The administration has filed to shrink Bears Ears, the 1.36-million-acre monument five tribes fought for a decade to protect. The order reopens Cedar Mesa's canyon country, and the Ancestral Puebloan sites woven through it, to mining claims and energy leasing.
Take action
Not open for comment yetGrand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
The same order moves to shrink Grand Staircase-Escalante, reopening the Kaiparowits Plateau, one of the largest untouched coal deposits in the country, to leasing. Nearly 1.9 million acres of canyon, bench, and fossil country hang on it.
Take action
Not open for comment yetThe ACEC designation rule
BLM has proposed rewriting how Areas of Critical Environmental Concern are planned and designated. The register it would touch holds 1,170 areas across 25 million acres, and the rule carries the agency's own deregulatory flag in the Unified Agenda.
Take action39 open decisions in the record
The fights that matter most right now.
The 3 biggest public-lands fights open today, ranked by how much is at stake and how far each one reaches, not just what closes first. If you only do one thing, start here.
- 02
Multi-state45 days leftStop weakened drilling rules across the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska
BLM would rewrite its rules to speed up oil drilling approvals in one of America's largest wild landscapes.
Bureau of Land Management - 03
Cibola National Forest19 days leftStop the Roca Honda uranium mine on Mount Taylor
A private company wants to open an underground uranium mine on Mount Taylor, on Cibola National Forest and BLM land as well as state and private land.
U.S. Forest Service
Comment today
6Closing now. Five minutes before the day is out.
Comment this week
8A few days left. Get it on the record.
Comment this month
18Time to write something specific and real.
Still open
4On the radar. Plenty of time, don’t let it slip.
Below: why a comment works, the other free tools, and how to make this a habit.
How a public comment actually works, and why a real one beats a thousand form letters.
The government will tell you itself: the comment process is not a vote. A single specific, personal comment can carry more weight than ten thousand identical ones, because the law makes the agency answer it. Here’s how you write one in five minutes.
Find what’s in motion
Every open comment window on a public-lands decision, in plain English, ranked by how urgent and how consequential it is. No bureaucratic notices to decode, no law degree required.
Say something true
We give you the stakes and a starter, then ask you two or three questions only you can answer: which land near you, what you do there, what you would lose. That’s what turns a form letter into a comment that counts.
Put it in the record
One click to the official comment page. By law the agency has to read and answer substantive comments, and when it ignores them, courts have thrown the decision out. That’s the lever.
Commenting is one lever. Here are the others, all free.
Know who is voting against these places, and see what is already in the crosshairs. Then make PLAN a weekly habit: a few minutes, one comment, every time a window opens.
How your members of Congress vote on public lands
Every representative, graded on the roll-call votes that decide the fate of parks, forests, and refuges.
Open the tool
The places under active threat, mapped
A live map of the parks, monuments, and wild country in the crosshairs right now.
Open the toolNever miss a deadline
Get the actions that need you, in your inbox.
Tell us your state and the issues you care about. We’ll send you the new public-lands actions worth your time, with the deadline and the explainer. No noise.
Know a fight we’re missing?
Most public-lands decisions never touch the Federal Register. State land boards, county hearings, and agency project pages run their own comment windows, and the people who live near them are the only ones who see them. Send us the fight and the official link. Our editors verify every submission before it goes live.
What is PLAN for Public Lands?
What is PLAN for Public Lands?
PLAN, the Public Lands Action Network, is a free tool from More Than Just Parks that tracks the federal public-lands decisions open for public comment right now. For each one it gives you a plain-English explainer, the real deadline, and the exact way to submit a comment that counts, the kind agencies are legally required to answer. It is updated every day.
Is PLAN free to use?
Yes. PLAN is completely free. You can read every fight and write a comment without signing up. Sign up with your email (no password, a 6-digit code) and your letters are kept on any device as your record. It is a public service from More Than Just Parks, funded by our readers and members.
How do I comment on a public lands decision?
Open the action you care about, answer a question or two about the place and what you would lose, and PLAN folds your answers into a comment in your own words. Then it hands you the official government comment page for that decision. A specific, personal comment is the kind an agency has to read and respond to.
Which agencies and decisions does PLAN cover?
PLAN pulls open comment windows daily from the Federal Register, the Bureau of Land Management (ePlanning), the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and the Army Corps of Engineers, including project-level decisions that never reach the Federal Register.
Does my public comment actually matter?
Yes. Federal agencies are legally required under the Administrative Procedure Act to consider and respond to substantive public comments. A comment that raises a specific, factual concern the agency has not addressed can change a decision or become the basis for a legal challenge. Form letters get bucketed and counted once; specifics carry weight.
Does PLAN submit my comment for me?
No, and it is not allowed to. Federal agencies require comments to come in through their own systems. PLAN writes the comment with you, copies it to your clipboard, and takes you to the exact page. You paste it and hit submit. That last step is yours.
How do I know my comment went through?
The agency’s site shows a confirmation after you submit; mark it done on PLAN and paste the confirmation number if you have one. Then, on regulations.gov dockets, PLAN reads the official record every hour and emails you when your letter posts, with the official link. Forest Service project comments never post publicly, so those stay at “filed” by your word, labeled that way. If the agency’s form gave you trouble, write to ask@morethanjustparks.com and tell us which action.
What is my record?
Sign up and every letter you write through PLAN becomes a record: proof it posted on the official docket, the agency’s answer to what you raised when the decision comes, the right to object on Forest Service projects, and the ground you stood for, with badges earned by what you did and a season card you can share. Your name appears on the boards as first name and last initial with your state, the way it already sits on the public docket beside your letter. Switch it off in your record, and delete it all with two taps, any time.
What happens after the deadline?
The action stays up as a record of what was at stake and what the agency was told. Agencies then have to respond to substantive comments before they can finalize a decision.
An action disappeared. Where did it go?
Either its comment window closed, or it was the same fight showing up twice from two agency systems and we merged them. Old links redirect to the surviving action.
Know an open comment period we are missing, or spotted a wrong deadline? .