# Plain Language Summary of H.R. 932

This bill asks the U.S. Department of Agriculture to take a close look at how volunteers are helping out at America's national forests. Specifically, the government needs to gather information about each national forest and then write a report to Congress explaining what they found. The study needs to be completed within one year of the bill becoming law.

Here's what the government will investigate: how many volunteer hours people have put in at each national forest over the past ten years, what maintenance work is currently backed up and needs to be done, whether volunteers could realistically help tackle any of that maintenance work, and what's stopping more people from volunteering. The bill defines volunteers as people who work without pay at national forests, though it excludes people who are part of official paid programs like AmeriCorps or the Youth Conservation Corps.

The practical impact is fairly straightforward—this is a fact-finding mission rather than a law that changes anything immediately. Once Congress gets the report, they'll have solid data about whether volunteers could help address the maintenance problems that plague national forests across the country. This information could eventually lead to policy changes that either encourage more volunteering or make it easier for volunteers to contribute. For people who care about public lands or are interested in volunteering, this study could help identify opportunities and barriers that currently exist in the system.

To require the Secretary of Agriculture to conduct a study on national forest volunteers, and for other purposes.

Griffith, H. Morgan

 <p>This bill directs the Forest Service to report on, with respect to each National Forest</p> <ul> <li> the amount of volunteer hours served,</li> <li> the deferred maintenance backlog,</li> <li> whether volunteers could carry out any projects under the deferred maintenance backlog, and </li> <li> any barriers to increasing volunteer participation.</li> </ul>