Congress voids forest crime rule—but won't say what crimes
S. 3520 — CLEAR Act of 2025 · Filed by Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced Dec 17, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill voids a Forest Service rule issued in November 2024 that established criminal prohibitions for conduct on federal forest lands, and bars the Secretary of Agriculture from implementing any substantially similar rule. The bill restores the legal landscape to what existed before the rule took effect, preventing federal enforcement of the criminal standards the rule created.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is to void a specific Forest Service rule and prohibit substantially similar rules, but the bill text does not disclose what conduct the voided rule criminalized. This is a deregulatory bill whose actual effect on citizens depends entirely on information withheld from the bill itself.
What the text implies
- The bill voids a rule by citation to the Federal Register without restating or summarizing the rule's substantive provisions, making it impossible for legislators or the public to know what criminal prohibitions are being removed.
- The phrase 'substantially similar rule' in subsection (b) creates an open-ended bar on future rulemaking, potentially preventing the Forest Service from issuing any criminal-prohibition rule on the same subject matter, even if circumstances change.
The full analysis lists 3 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
timber and logging companies; mining operators on federal forest lands; commercial recreation outfitters