Americans overwhelmingly oppose rolling back the Roadless Rule
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Forest Service has concluded a three week public comment period on the Trump administration’s plan to rescind the landmark Roadless Rule. The rule protects approximately 44.7 million acres of National Forest System lands, including nearly 2 million acres in Oregon, but the Trump administration wants to open these wild areas up for logging and mining.
Hundreds of thousands of comments were submitted from across the country, including thousands of unique and personalized comments from Oregonians. A coalition of conservation organizations, including Oregon Wild, Central Oregon LandWatch, Central and Eastern Oregon Bitterbrush Broadband, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Cascadia Wildlands, Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project, Greater Hells Canyon Council, and Oregon Sierra Club helped facilitate this outpouring of public input.
An initial analysis by the Center for Western Priorities found that opposition to dropping safeguards for Roadless Areas was nearly unanimous, with 99.2 percent of comments supporting keeping Roadless protections in place.
“The American people have clearly and forcefully rejected this attack on our wild public lands,” said Sami Godlove, Central Oregon Field Coordinator for Oregon Wild. “Proceeding with the rescission of the Roadless Rule after such an overwhelming outpouring of opposition would be another example of how the Trump administration allows campaign donors, like those in the logging industry, to buy the policies they want, even when the public has spoken nearly unanimously against them.”
Adopted in 2001 after the most extensive public involvement process in federal rulemaking history, the Roadless Rule safeguards some of America’s last intact national forest landscapes. These areas provide clean water, critical wildlife habitat, and world-class recreation opportunities while sustaining rural economies.
“Roadless areas contain much of our last remaining mature and old-growth public forests, which absorb climate pollution and provide refuge for vulnerable fish and wildlife,” said Grace Brahler, Wildlands Director with Cascadia Wildlands. “Targeting these areas for destructive extractive practices would further erode the ecological resilience we need in the face of a warming climate.”
The Roadless Rule protects wild ecosystems from the negative effects of large-scale, industrial logging.
Roadless Areas are also some of the most fire-resilient landscapes. Because they are remote and intact, they experience fewer human-caused ignitions. Building new roads would dramatically increase the number of man-made fire starts and redirect scarce firefighting resources away from protecting homes and communities. Instead of focusing on strategic fuel reduction projects near communities where it matters most, the logging industry is pressuring agencies to pursue logging in unroaded backcountry areas where timber is more lucrative. Logging in these areas would make them more vulnerable to fire, fragment wildlife habitat, and degrade water quality. Road construction and the sediment runoff that follows are already among the greatest threats to clean drinking water across the West.
“Even the Forest Service’s own research shows that building more roads neither improves forest health outcomes nor mitigates wildfire risks. More roads lead to more fires, pulling vital wildfire response resources away from where they’re needed most,” said Fiona Noonan of Central Oregon LandWatch. “Rolling back of the Roadless Rule is not only scientifically baseless — it’s reckless, putting people and ecosystems at greater risk.”
The Trump administration’s attempt to roll back the Roadless Rule is part of a broader campaign to weaken bedrock environmental safeguards. Other targets include the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, individual Forest Management Plans, and the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Conservation Rule. The administration has also slashed staff at the Forest Service and is attempting to relocate experienced staff and leadership away from the Pacific Northwest. These efforts undermine public accountability while falsely claiming to be about “local control.”
Lookout Mountain Roadless Area in the Ochoco National Forest. Photo: Joan Amero
“Rescinding the Roadless Rule would put clean drinking water at risk for people in downstream communities,” said Paula Hood of the Blue Mountain Biodiversity Project. “National Forests provide clean drinking water to millions of people nationwide, and Roadless areas are strongholds for the cleanest, coldest water.”
Meanwhile, most of Oregon’s congressional delegation has signed on in support of the Roadless Area Conservation Act, legislation that would make the rule permanent. The only two members who have not cosponsored the bill are Representative Val Hoyle and Representative Cliff Bentz.
“Eliminating the Roadless Rule would be a disaster for Oregon’s forests and communities,” said Jamie Dawson of Greater Hells Canyon Council. “Building new roads in these wild places opens the door to invasive species and habitat fragmentation. Once these areas are cut apart, we lose the clean water, wildlife, and solitude they provide forever.”
The next step in the Forest Service process will be to analyze the public comments and issue a draft plan, likely in the spring.