In 1891, Congress authorized the President to reserve existing public forestlands to protect and preserve the lands and resources. Presidential proclamations of forest reserves (now called national forests), subsequent land purchases, and other congressional authorizations have led to the current National Forest System (NFS)—193 million acres of federal lands in 155 national forests, 20 national grasslands, and numerous other units (land utilization projects, purchase units, research and experimental areas, and more). These lands are generally administered by the Forest Service, in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for many uses, including timber production, livestock grazing, and many types of recreation. Acceptable levels and locations of various uses are determined with public involvement in a land management planning process. Congress has also designated specific national forest areas to emphasize particular resources or values. Some types of designations, such as wilderness areas, have statutory guidelines that apply to all designated areas, as well as some site-specific directions. Many other designations, with a variety of titles, are administered under the area-specific guidance enacted when the area was designated. Congress continues to consider legislation to designate specific national forest areas for particular purposes. For example, the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009 ( P.L. 111-11 ) designated 20 new national forest wilderness areas, added lands to 20 existing national forest wilderness areas, designated at least nine wild and scenic rivers through national forests, designated two new national scenic areas and one new national recreation area in national forests, and designated seven other areas in national forests with special management provisions. Additional legislation to designate wilderness and other special areas within the NFS has been introduced. For both enacted and pending legislation, designations differ in the nature of the provisions included and in the level of detail provided. Following a brief overview of NFS management generally, this report summarizes the management provisions for the two major systems and then for the individual areas with statutory guidelines only for each designated area. The Appendix provides a list of all 97 specially designated individual areas, with a summary of each enacted management provision. In 1891, Congress authorized the President to proclaim forest reserves from existing federal lands. Six years later, in what has become known at the Forest Service Organic Administration Act, Congress defined the purposes of the reserves: "No public forest reservation shall be established, except to improve and protect the forest within the reservation, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States ..." Initially the reserves were administered by the Forestry Division of the General Land Office, within the Department of the Interior. In 1905, the 75 million acres of forest reserves (renamed national forests in 1907) were transferred to the Department of Agriculture; the Forestry Division was merged with the existing USDA Bureau of Forestry (whose purpose was to conduct forestry research and to provide assistance to forestland owners) to create a new agency: the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) in the Department of Agriculture. President Theodore Roosevelt increased the acreage of national forests to 172 million acres by 1909. The National Forest System (NFS) has continued to expand slowly, to 193 million acres in 2010. The original NFS management goals in the Organic Administration Act were to improve and protect the forest, secure favorable water flows, and furnish timber for citizens. Congress expanded theses goals in the Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act of 1960 (MUSYA). Section 1 of MUSYA directs that the national forests "shall be administered for outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes." Section 2 requires that the surface resources be developed and administered for "multiple use and sustained yield," considering the relative values of the various resources, and notes that creating and managing areas of wilderness is consistent with the purposes of the act. Section 4(a) of MUSYA defines multiple-use management of national forest resources. It directs management to best meet the needs of the American people, with adjustments to changing needs and conditions. Multiple-use management also permits some land to be used for only one or a few resources. Finally, multiple-use management must maintain the productivity of the lands. Thus, MUSYA directs that national forest management balance recreation, timber, grazing, water, and wildlife, as desired by the American people, while sustaining productivity. Planning for NFS use and management is guided by the National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA). NFMA requires comprehensive land and resource management plans for each unit of the NFS, to be amended as needed and revised periodically but at least every 15 years. The planning requires an interdisciplinary approach combining "physical, biological, economic, and other sciences," directs that the plans provide for multiple use in accordance with MUSYA, and requires public participation in developing, reviewing, and revising the plans. In Section 6 (16 U.S.C. § 1604), NFMA established numerous requirements and considerations for the planning process. Some provisions were particularly controversial, because of their potential to reduce or otherwise constrain timber harvesting. The more controversial provisions include: Section 6(g)(1): "insure that land management plans are prepared in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 ..." Section 6(g)(3)(B): "provide for diversity of plant and animal communities based on the suitability and capability of the specific land area ..." Section 6(g)(3)(E): "insure that timber will be harvested ... only where—(i) soil, slope, and other watershed conditions will not be irreversibly damaged; (ii) there is assurance that such lands can be adequately restocked within five years after harvest; [and] (iii) protection is provided for streams, streambanks, shorelines, lakes, wetlands, and other bodies of water from detrimental changes in water temperatures, blockages of water courses, and deposits of sediment, where harvests are likely to seriously and adversely affect water conditions or fish habitat ..." Section 6(k): "identify lands within the management area which are not suited for timber production, considering physical, economic, and other pertinent factors to the extent feasible, ... [and] assure that, except for salvage sales or sales necessitated to protect other multiple-use values, no timber harvesting shall occur on such lands for a period of 10 years." Two of these provisions—Section 6(g)(3)(E) and Section 6(k)—were intended to constrain timber harvesting by establishing biophysical and economic requirements, respectively, for timber production. The NEPA provision—Section 6(g)(1)—establishes a procedural requirement that can be, and has been, used to delay or prevent timber harvesting and other development activities in the national forests. The biological diversity provision—Section 6(g)(3)(B)—has perhaps had the most significant impact, however. The 1979 and 1982 regulations to implement this provision required the USFS to maintain viable populations of all native and desirable non-native species. This requirement for viable populations was the initial basis for the litigation that reduced USFS (and BLM) timber harvesting in the Pacific Northwest by 90% or more to maintain the northern spotted owl. (The subsequent listing of the owl under the Endangered Species Act provided further impetus to reduce timber harvesting to preserve northern spotted owl habitat.) In addition to the controversial provisions of NFMA, efforts to revise the 1982 implementing regulations have been controversial. In November 2000, the Clinton Administration finalized new rules (to be phased in) that emphasized planning for the biological sustainability of the national forests. The Bush Administration delayed implementing the Clinton rules, then replaced them in January 2005 before they went into effect. The final Bush rules were to balance biological and socioeconomic sustainability, to make fewer decisions nationally by reducing regulatory guidelines, and to exempt plans from NEPA and ESA, because the Bush Administration viewed plans as guides to decision-making that would not include site-specific decisions. The Bush planning rules were successfully challenged. In 2007, the USFS reissued the Bush rules as a proposed rule with a draft NEPA environmental impact statement and ESA consultation to meet court requirements. The final planning rules were issued in April 2008, and were invalidated by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in June 2009 for failing to comply with NEPA and ESA. In December 2009, the Obama Administration announced its intent to develop new NFMA planning regulations. Congress has at times seen fit to alter the general NFS management guidance for particular areas. These areas are commonly designated to emphasize particular resources or values, such as recreation or wildlife, sometimes with detailed congressional guidance for the areas. As part of its special area designations for some NFS lands, Congress has established two systems of special management areas, with general guidance that applies to all such designated areas: the National Wilderness Preservation System and the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. These two systems include lands administered by other federal land management agencies, as well as NFS lands, and the general guidance for the designated systems apply to all designated areas. In 1964, the Wilderness Act created the National Wilderness Preservation System, initially with 54 areas (totaling 9.1 million acres) that the USFS had previously established administratively as wilderness or wild areas. The act also reserved to Congress the right to expand the Wilderness System. Today, the Wilderness System contains 759 wilderness areas totaling nearly 110 million acres in 44 states. Of these, 441 areas with 36.2 million acres (33% of the total) are in the NFS. (See Table 1 .) The remaining wilderness areas are administered by the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. The Wilderness Act established general objectives and standards for areas to be included in the Wilderness System. Section 2(c) defines wilderness.