Policy Report: March 29, 2021
Welcome to the 4th Policy Report of the 2021 calendar year!
Upgrading Forest Service Policy Tools
Forest Service policy development is a cross-Deputy Area responsibility led by the Directives & Regulations Branch, a unit of the Strategic Planning, Budget, and Accountability in Business Operations. The Branch is updating and upgrading the Forest Service Directive System in several important respects. This work is possible through collaboration with the National Forest System Policy Team and the Washington Office of Communications. The focus of these changes includes the way we:
- make new policies,
- manage the development of new policy, and
- produce policy for viewing by employees and the public.
Changes in how we make new policy. The Agency is revising the Directives Handbook to include detailed notice and comment procedures to ensure transparency in policy development. This culminates efforts that began in 2015 to broaden the range of new policies made available for public comment. The Agency initiated the new notice and comment process in June 2020 and, with approval from the Office of Management and Budget, we expect to update the Directives Handbook by mid-April with procedures that reflect both new requirements and our recent experience.
Managing Development of New Policy. The Directives and Regulations team, the NFS Policy Team, and the NFS BASS group have collaborated to create the Policy Management Application, an online database to track policy development. This system will provide real-time reporting about the status of policy development across the Agency and within USDA and will help us better manage the process as the directives workload expands, as expected. This content management resource provides flexible reporting capabilities to meet evolving information sharing needs. While only policy managers will enter information, to ensure system integrity, employees will be able to view the status of any directive in development.
Upgrading Internal and External Information Sharing Resources. We are excited to share a fully upgraded website for hosting the Forest Service Directive System, along with a new employee website focused on all aspects of policy development.
- Policy Resources and Accountability Employee Website. The increasing need to coordinate, coupled with a need for information resources on policy development, resulted in the creation of the Policy Resources and Accountability website for employees. The website is built on three guiding principles:
- to help employees plan for and develop regulations and directives;
- to be a great resource for policy development broadly, including using the Federal Register, and managing Paperwork Reduction Act requirements; and
- to educate all employees of their critical role in developing and carrying out agency policy.
The website will launch in April and will continue to be updated on a regular basis. Units are encouraged to link to rather than repurpose content, so all employees have the best information available.
- New Directive System Website. The Agency currently makes the Directive System, comprised of all Forest Service Manuals and Handbooks, available online to employees and the public. We use an outward-facing website and an internal collaborative site. Both sites provide the same information independent of each other and are on out-of-date platforms that are maintained separately.
In April, we will begin a 6-month transition to a single, updated website to host the Directive System. Users can search the new site, which is better organized for easier navigation. During this time, the internally hosted (SharePoint) version of the Directive System will be retired. The existing external web-based Directive System will continue to be available for employees and the public. A beta version of the new Directive System website also will be available internally for national directives only. In October, the complete upgraded website will be fully operational for employees and the public, and the legacy site will be retired.
Recently issued directives:
No new directives were published from the period of 3/17/2021 to present.
Regulatory actions:
No new regulatory actions were published from the period of 1/15/2021 to present.
Directives published for public comment:
No new directives were published for public comment from the period of 1/15/2021 to present.
Upcoming events:
Please join the Directives and Regulations branch for a series of 1-hour Teams webinars to learn about changes to the directive development process, procedures to make proposed directives available for public comment, and be introduced to new tools and resources designed to support the policy development process. The specific times and links for the webinars are as follows (choose a session link to join):
For any questions or additional information about these webinars please contact Lisa Shores (lisa.shores@usda.gov) or Miranda Galadima (Miranda.galadima@usda.gov). We look forward to your participation!