September 18, 2025

How to Make Your Voice Count in Government Agency Environmental Decisions: A Guide to Effective Public Commenting  

Administrative agencies at the state and federal levels make many decisions that affect our environment—approving pipelines, issuing permits for pollution, or creating new rules for protecting air and water. Fortunately, federal and state administrative laws often gives members of the public the right to participate in many of these decisions through a process called notice and comment. 

Why Comment? 

Given the right circumstances, and when done well, your public comments can lead to more well-informed agency action and lead to better environmental and public interest outcomes. This can include securing more protective permit requirements, influencing agency projects, and even stopping bad projects entirely. 

Participating in agency notice and comment opportunities is essential to a healthy democracy. While elections choose leaders, much of the actual policymaking happens in government agencies through decisions about regulations, permits, and environmental reviews. These decisions shape the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the lands we cherish. Public comment gives ordinary people a voice in these often complex and technical processes. 

By submitting comments, citizens help hold agencies accountable to the law, to science, and to the public interest. Meaningful comments can influence final decisions, strengthen environmental protections, or stop harmful actions. Participation also creates a factual and public record of opposition or support, which can be important in court challenges or legislative oversight. 

Moreover, notice and comment ensures that policymaking is not captured solely by industry insiders or special interests. It invites community knowledge, lived experience, and local concerns into the federal decision-making process. For example, a resident who fishes a stream daily may offer insights missed by consultants hundreds of miles away. 

Common Opportunities to Comment 

1. Agency Projects: These include decisions to approve or deny proposals like logging in a national forest, building a dam, or conducting seismic testing in a wildlife refuge. At the federal level, major government projects are usually evaluated under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and often come with opportunities to comment on draft Environmental Assessments (EAs) or Environmental Impact Statements (EISs). 

2. Permits: Often, permitting is handled by state agencies that implement federal law through a process called “cooperative federalism.” In Ohio, the Ohio EPA issues permits for water pollution discharges (e.g., under the Clean Water Act), and air emissions (Clean Air Act), and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) issues permits for resource extraction (like oil and gas drilling on public lands). Permit proposals typically come with public notice and comment opportunities.  

3. Rulemakings: Most often, this involves changes to existing regulations. Examples include updating pollution standards and listing an endangered species. The Federal Register publishes these announcements for federal rulemakings, providing a minimum 30-day comment window (often longer). 

How to Make Your Comments Effective 

Victories are not guaranteed in agency public involvement processes, as many agencies tend to be resistant to change, with their actions often shaped by political pressures, agency culture, and budgetary incentives. However, wins small and large are real and achievable.  

At the very least, by submitting quality public comments you are building what is called the “agency record,” the overall written body of information before an agency that it must consider in coming to its decision. Notably, if an agency action is challenged in court, the agency record serves as the primary (and often exclusive) body of evidence over which the litigants contest and the court rules. 

Whether and to what extent your participation in agency public process effects change depends on a host of factors. Keeping the following tips in mind will help you maximize your effectiveness in the agency decision-making process. 

1. Know Where to Look 
   You may not know about an agency action affecting you or a place you care about unless you know where to find the applicable public notice. This can be a tricky element of the process, as missing a notice typically means missing the opportunity to comment. And, each agency tends to have a different process of notification. Environmental NGOs at the state, national, and local levels can be a great resource for alerting members to comment opportunities. If you know what you are looking for, you may be able to sign up for notifications from the applicable agency. To see actions and comment periods proposed by the U.S. Forest Service for Ohio’s Wayne National Forest, you can periodically check the quarterly Schedule of Proposed Actions (“SOPA”) here. 
2. Be Timely and Follow Instructions 
   Always submit your comments before the deadline listed in the notice. Use the official submission method—usually an online portal like Regulations.gov, email, or postal mail. Failure to follow instructions can lead to comments that do not get considered and do not make it into the agency record. 
3. Be Specific and Evidence-Based 
   Agencies must generally support their actions with meaningful data. The most effective comments tend to focus on factual information. Where applicable and available, cite and include quality data, maps, photographs, and scientific literature. That said, facts that arise from personal experience rather than, say, scientific journals are often invaluable in the comment process. If you have personal knowledge of an area or of resources that may be impacted, share that information. Vague statements like “I care about clean water” may be noted but carry little weight. Instead, cite specific impacts—such as “This permit would allow discharges into a stream that feeds our local drinking water supply. 
4. Be a Force for Reason 
   To survive judicial review, agencies typically need to support their decisions with valid information and reasonable explanations. If you see flawed reasoning, decisions that are unsupported by meaningful evidence, or decisions that are unexplained or poorly explained, be sure to point those flaws out and to explain your own reasoning. Pointing out flaws in agency assumptions or reasoning is one of the best ways to influence the administrative process. Offering alternatives or improvements to agency proposals can be effective as well.  
5. Join Forces and Amplify Your Voice 
   Coordinated campaigns can be powerful. Consider partnering with environmental organizations, writing group letters, or hosting community comment-writing events. Agencies must consider the substance of comments—not generally the number—so form letters should be well crafted and individualized letters can be especially helpful. 
6. Keep a Record and Follow Up 
   Save your comment and watch for the agency’s response in the final decision document. If they ignore key factual or scientific issues you raised, that may open the door for an administrative appeal or legal challenge. 

Current and (likely) Upcoming Opportunities in Ohio 

ODNR State Forest Annual Work Plan The Ohio Department of Natural Resources is accepting public comments on the 2025-2026 DRAFT Annual Work Plan until October 5, 2025. Formal comments can be submitted electronically here: https://forms.office.com/g/k05s2GDimH.  

Ohio State Public Lands Fracking Nominations  Despite significant opposition, ODNR is actively accepting and approving nominations to frack under Ohio’s State Public Lands. For each nomination, there is a 45-day period to submit comments to the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission through the official portal. To stay informed of all land nominations, register for updates from ODNR Oil & Gas Commission (send an email to Commission.Clerk@oglmc.ohio.gov) or join Save Ohio Parks email list. 

OEC continues to monitor proposed fracking and timbering projects in Ohio’s only National Forest and anticipates opportunities for public comment in the near future.  Please stay connected to learn about proposals and calls for action.