The CLEAR Act of 2025 declares the Forest Service rule titled "Law Enforcement; Criminal Prohibitions" (89 Fed. Reg. 92808, Nov. 25, 2024) to have no force or effect and bars the Secretary of Agriculture from administering, implementing, or enforcing that rule or any substantially similar rule.
The statute is narrowly targeted: it displaces a specific rule and prohibits the agency from adopting a similar regulatory approach going forward.
This matters to anyone who enforces, prosecutes, visits, or manages National Forest System lands. By nullifying the rule, the bill removes a federal regulatory tool that would have created or clarified certain criminal prohibitions on Forest Service lands and replaces it with a statutory prohibition on the agency adopting comparable regulations — a step that would reshape the interplay between federal administrative rulemaking and on-the-ground law enforcement on public lands.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill expressly declares the 2024 Forest Service rule listed at 89 Fed. Reg. 92808 to have no force or effect and makes it unlawful for the Secretary of Agriculture to administer, implement, or enforce that rule or any substantially similar rule. It does not amend the underlying statutes that authorize the Forest Service or change criminal statutes themselves.
Who It Affects
The Forest Service and the Department of Agriculture bear the direct prohibition; Forest Service law enforcement, rangers, and internal regulatory programs will be the operationally affected units. Prosecutors, cooperating local and state law enforcement agencies, and users of National Forest System lands will see practical effects if the rule had altered enforcement options.
Why It Matters
The bill draws a sharp line limiting agency regulatory authority over criminal prohibitions on federal lands and signals Congressional intent to prevent the Forest Service from using rulemaking to expand or clarify criminal enforcement. That shifts the policy venue away from agency rulemaking toward Congress or existing statutory tools.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The CLEAR Act of 2025 consists of two short provisions. First, it assigns a short title.
Second, it targets one Forest Service regulation by its Federal Register citation and declares that regulation to have "no force or effect." In plain terms, the bill treats the named 2024 regulation as if it were repealed by statute: the agency may not rely on it for enforcement or administrative actions.
Beyond scrubbing the named rule, the bill also forbids the Secretary of Agriculture from administering, implementing, or enforcing any rule that is "substantially similar." That phrase is not defined in the text, so its practical scope will depend on subsequent regulatory practice or judicial interpretation. Practically, the prohibition will constrain the Forest Service's future rulemaking options on the same subject matter because any new rule risk being struck down under the statute if it crosses the undefined substantial-similarity line.Importantly, the bill does not itself amend criminal statutes or explicitly reassign criminal investigatory or prosecutorial authority.
It operates at the administrative level: it removes a specific regulatory instrument and bars the agency from adopting analogous instruments. That means existing statutory authorities (whether statutory prohibitions in Title 16, 18, or other provisions, or state law applicable under cooperative arrangements) remain the relevant legal bases for prosecutions unless separately changed by Congress or court decisions.On the ground, the immediate consequence would be that any citations, training, or internal procedures premised solely on the 2024 rule would need to be halted or revised.
The Forest Service would have to decide whether to (a) revert to pre-rule guidance and procedures, (b) pursue new regulatory language narrowly tailored to avoid the statutory ban, or (c) rely on nonregulatory tools (policy guidance, memoranda, or enhanced intergovernmental agreements) to achieve enforcement objectives. Each path carries operational, legal, and political trade-offs.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill names the Forest Service rule by citation—"Law Enforcement; Criminal Prohibitions" (89 Fed. Reg. 92808, Nov. 25, 2024)—and states it shall have "no force or effect.", It prohibits the Secretary of Agriculture from administering, implementing, or enforcing that named rule or any "substantially similar" rule; "substantially similar" is not defined in the bill.
The statute does not amend or repeal any underlying criminal statute or statutory grant of authority to the Forest Service; it operates by nullifying a specific regulatory text.
Because the bill targets a published Federal Register rule, its effect is retroactive to the rule's publication date: the named rule is treated as legally void under the new statute.
The bill places the practical burden on the Forest Service to avoid issuing replacement regulations that risk being judged "substantially similar," effectively narrowing the agency's future rulemaking options on the same subject.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title
Provides the act's short title: "Community Law Enforcement Authority Restoration Act of 2025" or the "CLEAR Act of 2025." This is a labeling provision only; it signals the sponsor's policy framing but has no operational effect beyond identification.
Invalidates the specific Forest Service rule
Declares the Forest Service rule titled "Law Enforcement; Criminal Prohibitions" and identified by its Federal Register citation to "have no force or effect." That statutory declaration functions as a targeted nullification of an administrative rule rather than as an amendment to the underlying statute. Practically, any regulatory text, enforcement authority, or agency reliance that rested solely on that rule would be withdrawn.
Prohibits implementation or enforcement of similar rules
Bars the Secretary of Agriculture from administering, implementing, or enforcing the invalidated rule or any "substantially similar rule." The provision is forward-looking as well as retroactive: it seeks to prevent the agency from adopting a functionally equivalent regulation. The undefined "substantially similar" standard is the operational hinge that will determine how broadly the prohibition constrains future agency action and is likely to prompt legal challenges or demand careful drafting of any new rulemaking.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Criminal Justice across all five countries.
Explore Criminal Justice in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Organizations and individuals who opposed the 2024 Forest Service rule because it expanded or clarified federal criminal prohibitions—they avoid new federal criminally enforceable standards on National Forest System lands.
- Operators and users of National Forest lands (recreational users, outfitters, certain commercial permittees) who faced new regulatory prohibitions under the 2024 rule, since the rule's explicit prohibitions would be void.
- Members of Congress and interest groups seeking to reserve changes to criminal enforcement for the legislative process rather than agency rulemaking, because the bill shifts the venue for policy change away from the agency.
Who Bears the Cost
- U.S. Forest Service and Department of Agriculture, which must unwind the published rule, revise training and enforcement guidance, and redesign any programs that relied on the rule—incurring administrative and operational costs.
- Prosecutors and cooperating law enforcement partners who anticipated using the rule as a legal basis for charges or enforcement actions, which may create gaps or uncertainty in enforcement approaches.
- Public-safety or resource-protection advocacy groups that supported the 2024 rule's additional enforcement tools, because the bill removes a regulatory mechanism they viewed as necessary to deter harmful behavior on federal lands.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central tension is between restoring or preserving local and legislative control over criminal law on federal lands (preventing an agency from using rulemaking to expand criminal prohibitions) and the government's interest in a uniform, administrable set of federal rules to protect resources and public safety; preventing agency rulemaking narrows available enforcement tools but may also limit the government's ability to respond quickly to emergent on-the-ground problems.
The bill raises immediate interpretive and implementation questions. First, "no force or effect" is a clear congressional nullification of a regulatory text, but the statute does not define what counts as "substantially similar." That ambiguity creates a litigation hotspot: courts will likely be asked to construe the standard if the Forest Service adopts any new regulatory language addressing the same subject.
Second, the bill focuses on administrative regulation and leaves underlying criminal statutes intact; whether existing statutory criminal provisions can be used to reach the conduct targeted by the 2024 rule depends on statutory text and prosecutorial judgment, which may leave enforcement gaps the bill does not address.
Operationally, the statutory prohibition may encourage the Forest Service to pursue nonregulatory alternatives (guidance, internal policy, MOUs with state and local partners) to achieve enforcement aims without issuing a new rule. That workaround raises separate questions about transparency, public participation, and the durability of such measures.
Finally, the bill could prompt reciprocal actions in other agencies or trigger broader debates about Congress's willingness to micromanage specific agency rules rather than addressing policy disagreements through statute.
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