Summary: The U.S. Forest Service has proposed three administrative alternatives—highlighted by a preferred option to completely rescind the national 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule across 58.5 million acres of public land—and is accepting public comments through October 6. Learn the facts about the Roadless Rule so you can speak with authority and make your voice count on the Forest Service’s new proposal.
On August 18, the U.S. Forest Service announced a proposed rule to rescind in its entirety the national 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (Roadless Rule). In doing so, the Forest Service said its aim is to remove “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.” While this is true, the issue is much more nuanced. The Forest Service will accept public comments on the proposal and on a draft of the environmental impact statement (EIS) until October 6.
What is the Forest Service Proposing?
The Forest Service’s current proposed rule and draft EIS contemplate three structural pathways:
- Alternative 1 (Status Quo): Keep the current 2001 Roadless Rule exactly as it is today, maintaining the status quo
- Alternative 2 (Full Rescission – Forest Service Preferred Option): Total removal of the Roadless Rule in its entirety, returning primary authority for determining the appropriate management of inventoried roadless areas back to the local level through the land management planning process.
- As a result, decisions on road building, maintenance, and decommissioning would occur during the land management planning process that each National Forest must go through. Importantly, existing forest management plans would remain in place until modified through appropriate processes.
About 55% of existing land management plans already independently prohibit road construction in areas covered by the Roadless Rule, though these plans could be amended to accommodate road construction for forest management activities, or for resource extraction by logging or mining.
- Alternative 3 (Hybrid Approach): Rescind the Roadless Rule within 0.5 miles of existing roads and within the wildland-urban interface (which could extend further than 0.5 miles and is intended to protect developed areas from wildfire).
- This option keeps truly roadless, backcountry areas protected from road development and associated activities, while localizing decision-making to individual forests to manage access nearer to existing road infrastructure. It also prioritizes areas where wildfires pose the greatest risks to human development.
However, Alternative 3 only protects about 4 million acres more than Alternative 2.
Need help understanding the Roadless Rule to make an informed comment on which alternative you prefer and why it matters? Keep reading.
What is the Roadless Rule?
Promulgated in 2001, the Roadless Rule established “prohibitions on road construction, road reconstruction, and timber harvesting in inventoried roadless areas on National Forest System lands,” with the intent “to provide lasting protection for inventoried roadless areas within the National Forest System in the context of multiple-use management.” The Rule covers 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas, or roughly one-third of all National Forest System lands.
As the name implies, these inventoried roadless areas generally lack road access, although some exceptions exist. For instance, some roads were constructed between 1979, the time the lands were inventoried, and 2001, when the Rule took effect, so some roadless areas do indeed have roads.
Similarly, some management activities, such as timber removal, can occur in roadless areas, in limited circumstances. Importantly, roadless areas are not Wilderness areas, which require a completely different federal designation that can only be done by an act of Congress. But typically, areas covered by the Roadless Rule are void of road access, and they experience very little land management activities.
Opponents of the Roadless Rule say this hampers recreation and managing healthy, fire-resilient forests.
Alternatively, supporters of the Roadless Rule argue that it preserves critical, undisturbed wildlife habitats and protects fragile ecosystems from commercial exploitation and human-caused wildfire.
The Roadless Rule was controversial from its implementation. It was subject to a decade of litigation that broadly focused on balancing the multiple-use mandates of the National Forest System. For a detailed history of the Forest Service and the National Forest System, including how multiple-use and forest management have looked through the years, click here.
The Legal Framework and History of the Roadless Rule
- 2003: Challenged and set aside by a Federal Court in Wyoming.
- 2005: The Bush Administration promulgated a new rule allowing states to petition the Forest Service to implement localized roadless areas.
- Environmental Challenges: Several environmental groups challenged the 2005 rule. A Federal Court in Northern California set that rule aside and reinstated the original 2001 Roadless Rule.
- 2011: The rule was challenged and set aside again by a Federal Court in Wyoming, but that decision was reversed by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.
- Current Standing: Today, the Roadless Rule applies nationwide, with the exceptions of Colorado and Idaho. These states applied for, and were granted, their own state-specific roadless rules from the Forest Service under a petition process that no longer exists.
Why Matters to Hunters and Anglers
Most discussion surrounding rescission of the Roadless Rule has focused on habitat management, big game availability and migration, wildfire, and funding. And rightfully so.
New road construction could negatively impact pristine habitats and open lands to logging, mining, or other forms of resource extraction. However, it also could open those same lands to effective management for wildfire resiliency, including managing invasive species. But human access could also increase the risk of wildfire.
Similarly, new roads could expand hunting opportunities for big game, such as deer or elk, but studies have shown that wildlife can be negatively impacted by disturbance. Finally, the Forest Service already has a significant backlog of maintenance on its existing road network – a network that includes more miles than the interstate system – and taxpayers could be negatively impacted by the greenlighting of new road construction.
All of these points are valid, and they’re all deeply personal. Different experiences and values will lead sportsmen to different opinions on which direction the Forest Service should take. And that’s ok. But what we should all agree on is the need for sportsmen to engage. The Forest Service is accepting public comments on the proposed rule and draft EIS through October 6. The Sportsmen’s Alliance is encouraging all sportsmen to comment. Express your support. Express your concerns. But most importantly, express what our lands, wildlife, and access to both mean to you.
The Sportsmen’s Alliance guarantees hunting, fishing and trapping for the American sportsman now and forever. We’re there when sportsmen need us most. We are the only organization specifically created to protect the individual hunter, angler and trapper – no matter the threat. We will never compromise when it comes to defending our way of life in the courts, in the legislatures, in the public square and at the ballot box. We make this promise to the American sportsman: we will never give up and never give in while proudly securing our future against those seeking to destroy our values, beliefs, and traditions. Stay connected to Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
