The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced the U.S. Forest Service has filed a proposed rule to rescind in its entirety the national 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, a one-size-fits-all restriction that has frustrated land managers and served as a barrier to wildfire risk reduction work across large swaths of America’s national forests.
“Our forests can’t afford another decade of inaction. Across the country, we’ve watched preventable conditions — overgrown stands, insect outbreaks and disease — turn healthy landscapes into tinderboxes,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. “For too long, outdated restrictions have kept tens of millions of forested acres off-limits to the very treatments that improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk to our communities. Today, we filed a proposal to restore authority to local forest managers who know the land best, removing the barriers that have kept them from doing the work the land demands. It’s time to turn the page on the failed Roadless Rule and return our forests to health and productivity.”
For 25 years, the 2001 Roadless Rule restricted road construction and limited the Forest Service’s ability to carry out critical active management work within inventoried roadless areas, said the USDA. Today, that includes more than 44 million acres of the 193-million-acre national forest system. The rescission is intended to prioritize local agency decision-making over regulatory rules that are the same across the country, regardless of specific land management issues and needs.
“This proposed rule is commonsense policy sought since the first Trump administration. In the years since, the need for it has only become more apparent,” said Deputy Secretary Stephen A. Vaden. “It is a credit to President Trump that we can begin to put into place a rule that will allow us to properly manage our national forests, because the first step to managing forests is to have access to them.”
The agency will seek public comment on the proposal and on a draft of the environmental impact statement filed Aug. 18 in the Federal Register. The rescission removes national designation of roadless areas but does not mandate timber cutting or road construction. The action removes regulatory burden and sends decisions about roadless areas to the local national forest managers, said the USDA.
“Active forest management is not an option. It’s essential,” said Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz. “More than 40% of inventoried roadless areas, primarily in the West, have high or very high wildfire hazard potential. And only 5% of those areas have received hazardous fuels reduction treatments since 2014. At the same time, more than a quarter of these lands — 11.3 million acres — are already near existing roads. Acting now, thoughtfully and decisively, is the best way to restore the balance, reduce wildfire risk and secure the long-term health of our forests and neighboring communities.”
The proposed rescission reflects the administration’s commitment to return authority to local line officers and ensure they have the tools needed to restore forest health and productivity, said the USDA. The agency says the rescission aligns with Executive Order 14192, “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation,” to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens; Executive Order 14225, “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production”; Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy”; and Executive Order 14153, “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential.”
Returning roadless-area decisions to forest-level land management planning provides flexibility the national rule did not. Future land management decisions would be based on natural resource conditions and needs and informed by states, tribes and communities, said the USDA. Rescinding the rule allows forest managers to address watershed, economic and wildfire-risk conditions within the sideboards of existing laws, regulations and policy. That would put those decisions within the same planning framework that guides individual plans throughout the national forest system.
More than 95% of inventoried roadless areas are in 10 Western states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The proposed rule does not apply to national forests in Colorado and Idaho because those lands are under separate state-specific roadless regulations.
Those interested in commenting on the proposed rule and draft environmental impact statement can visit Regulations.gov. Public comments must be received by midnight Sept. 21. More information is available on the Forest Service roadless areas webpage.
