Letter to William & Thomas 10/18/95

United States Department of Agriculture
Forest Service
Washington Office
14th & Independence SW
P.O. Box 96090
Washington, DC 20090-6090


Reply To: 2700
Date: October 18, 1995

William and Ellen Thomas
P.O. Box 27217
Washington, D.C. 20038

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Thomas:

On August 30, 1995, the final rule concerning noncommercial group use on the national forests was published in the Federal Register. Implementation by the USDA Forest Service will occur on September 29, 1995.

I would like to thank you for caring enough to comment upon the proposed rule, which was published on May 6, 1993. We carefully considered all the comments sent to us and made several substantial changes to the proposed rule. These include removing the proposal to require a permit for noncommercial distribution of printed material; increasing the threshold for a group from 25 in the proposed rule to 75 in the final rule; and requiring a short, specific timeframe for processing permit applications.

The final noncommercial group use rule reflects our best effort to improve our special use permit application and approval procedures for large noncommercial groups to meet constitutional requirements, while allowing the Forest Service to fulfill its statutory obligations to protect National Forest System lands and resources.

For your information, I have enclosed a copy of the final rule that was published in the Federal Register.

Sincerely,

JACK WARD THOMAS
Chief

Enclosure

Caring for the Land and Serving People


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