Law Enforcement; Criminal Prohibitions

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE <SUBAGY>Forest Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>36 CFR Part 261</CFR> <RIN>RIN 0596-AD57</RIN> <SUBJECT>Law Enforcement; Criminal Prohibitions</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Forest Service, Agriculture. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Department of Agriculture (Department) is revising the Forest Service (Forest Service or Agency)'s criminal prohibitions to enhance consistency of the Forest Service's law enforcement practices with those of State and other Federal land management agencies. The Department is also streamlining enforcement of the Forest Service's criminal prohibitions related to fire and use of vehicles on National Forest System roads and National Forest System trails by eliminating the requirement to issue an order for enforcement. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective December 26, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Gene Smithson, Deputy Director, Law Enforcement and Investigations, 703-605-4730 or <E T="03">Wilmer.Smithson@usda.gov</E> . Individuals who use telecommunications devices for the hearing impaired may call 711 to reach the Telecommunications Relay Service 24 hours a day, every day of the year, including holidays. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background and Need</HD> This final rule revises certain criminal prohibitions in 36 CFR part 261, subpart A, to enhance consistency of the Forest Service's law enforcement practices with those of State and other Federal land management agencies. In addition, this final rule streamlines enforcement of some of the criminal prohibitions found in 36 CFR part 261, subpart B, which are enforceable only through issuance of an order, by moving them to 36 CFR part 261, subpart A, which contains criminal prohibitions that are enforceable without issuance of an order. Forest Service law enforcement personnel continue to encounter a significant volume of violations for simple possession of controlled substances and drug paraphernalia. Agency law enforcement personnel routinely deal with under-age alcohol possession on National Forest System (NFS) lands. These violations pose a threat to the safety of visitors to NFS lands as well as to Forest Service personnel. This final rule enhances the Forest Service's authority to address public safety issues by adding prohibitions relating to controlled substances, drug paraphernalia, and alcoholic beverages. These new prohibitions enable the Forest Service to enforce more effectively violations on NFS lands for simple possession of controlled substances, possession of alcoholic beverages in violation of State law (for open containers or under-age drinking) and furnishing alcoholic beverages to minors. The final rule also authorizes the Forest Service to enforce violations for the possession of drug paraphernalia if prohibited by State law. These changes are intended to align the Forest Service's law enforcement practices more closely with those of State and local law enforcement agencies. Additionally, the final rule updates the prohibitions to enhance protection of persons visiting and working on NFS lands from theft of personal property and from disorderly conduct by other visitors. The final rule enhances enforcement of wildfire prevention prohibitions by moving them from 36 CFR part 261, subpart B, which requires issuance of an order, to 36 CFR part 261, subpart A, which does not, and by adding a prohibition banning exploding targets year-round. The final rule also makes other revisions such as updating the prohibitions relating to off-road vehicles and updating the penalty for violating the criminal prohibitions in 36 CFR part 261 consistent with current statutory law. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Comments and Responses</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Overview</HD> On October 3, 2023, the Forest Service published a proposed rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (88 FR 68035) proposing to revise the Forest Service's criminal prohibitions to enhance consistency of the Agency's law enforcement practices with those of State and other Federal land management agencies and to streamline enforcement of the Agency's criminal prohibitions related to fire and use of vehicles on NFS roads and NFS trails by eliminating the requirement to issue an order for enforcement. The Forest Service received 41 comments during the public comment period. Eight were from professional and interest groups, 19 were from individuals, 9 were from State or local governmental entities, and 5 were submitted anonymously. Four commenters supported the proposed rule, 11 conditionally supported the proposed rule, and 26 opposed the proposed rule. One of the commenters requested a 90-day extension of the comment period. Based on the detail in the comments submitted, the Forest Service determined that it was not necessary or appropriate to extend the comment period for the proposed rule. The comments on the proposed rule and the Department's responses follow. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Comments Outside the Scope of the Proposed Rule</HD> <E T="03">Comment:</E> One commenter was concerned about the Forest Service's response to requests for law enforcement assistance. One commenter believed that a lack of law enforcement on NFS lands is a concern given the increase in crime, wondered why Forest Service law enforcement officers were not given the tools to handle violations of existing regulations, and expressed concern about the number of dog leash regulations. Another commenter recommended removing any penalties for those who protest commercial activities on NFS lands. Some commenters were concerned that the Federal courts do not have a juvenile justice system. Multiple commenters requested that the Forest Service increase funding for cooperative law enforcement agreements with State and local law enforcement agencies. Some commenters wanted a prohibition providing for protection for nude recreation. One commenter was concerned about recreation fees being charged under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act for areas on NFS lands with a development scale of zero. Another commenter was concerned about not using State courts for prosecution of prohibitions under the proposed rule. <E T="03">Response:</E> These comments are outside the scope of the proposed rule, which does not address the Forest Service's response to requests for law enforcement assistance, enforcement of existing regulations, prohibitions on unleashed dogs, enforcement involving protests, the juvenile justice system, the staffing levels of State and local law enforcement agencies, funding for cooperative law enforcement agreements with State and local law enforcement agencies, prohibitions providing for protection for nude recreation, recreation fees charged under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, or the venue for prosecuting violations of prohibitions under the proposed rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">General Comments</HD> <E T="03">Comment:</E> One commenter believed that the proposed rule could be beneficial to the safety of visitors to NFS lands if Forest Service law enforcement officers were provided sufficient training. <E T="03">Response:</E> The Department agrees that training for Forest Service law enforcement officers is critical, and training will be provided on the final rule. In addition, Forest Service law enforcement officers are already familiar with the prohibitions in the final rule and have been enforcing several of the prohibitions included in subpart A of the proposed rule through orders issued under subpart B of the existing rule. The proposed and final rules streamline work and eliminate the task of issuing orders for these prohibitions for each Agency administrative unit and promote consistent enforcement of these prohibitions nationwide. <E T="03">Comment:</E> One commenter asserted that the proposed rule would ensure uniformity of enforcement. <E T="03">Response:</E> The Department agrees that the proposed and final rules promote consistency in law enforcement on NFS lands. <E T="03">Comment:</E> One commenter expressed concern that the proposed rule would lead to over-policing, would have a disparate impact on people of color, and would lead to pretextual encounters that violate the privacy of NFS visitors. <E T="03">Response:</E> The final rule is not expected to result in disproportionately high and adverse impacts on minority or low-income populations. Forest Service law enforcement officers are not exempt from Federal civil rights and privacy laws and Executive orders, including Executive Order 14074, <E T="03">Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices To Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety,</E> and must comply with requirements in the United States Constitution regarding search and seizure. In addition, the final rule will allow Forest Service law enforcement officers to enforce possession of controlled substances on NFS lands under the Forest Service's regulations as a Class B misdemeanor, as appropriate, rather than under 21 U.S.C. 844(a) as a Class A misdemeanor or felony, which carry harsher penalties. <E T="03">Comment:</E> One commenter asserted that the proposed rule bypassed Congressional review and approval. <E T="03">Response:</E> The Forest Service submits all final rules, including this final rule, to Congress in accordance with the Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 801 <E T="03">et seq.</E> <E T="03">Comment:</E> Some commenters expressed concern that the proposed rule would adversely affect public safety. For example, one commenter believed that assault under State law could be charged as disorderly conduct under the proposed rule. <E T="03">Response:</E> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 62k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━