Roadless Rule Rescinded

[Beignet]

Welp, more “wins.” Not just the Tongass this time around.

https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2025/06/23/secretary-rollins-rescinds-roadless-rule-eliminating-impediment-responsible-forest-management

 

[Gr8bawana]

Why am I not surprised?

 

[mbhuberman]

Why am I not surprised?

Thank you much for your post. Seems like humans can just be so greeds, living only in the moment for what they want.

 

[Alpine01]

USDA has filed a proposed rule to rescind in its entirety the national 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and will seek public comment through September 21, 2026.

https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2026/08/18/usda-acts-remove-roadless-rule-restrictions-exacerbate-rising-wildfire-risk

Time to once again rally public support against this and reach out to your respective congress critters to let them know whether you support or oppose this change.

 

[Beignet]

Lolz on the rationale. As I understand it the current rule already allows for vegetation management and access for fire suppression.

Moreover, more roads + more people and their junk = more fire risk.

 

[MT22]

Not the least bit surprising from this administration

 

[Nameless Range]

I am surprised by the lack of opposition, or at least quietness, to this by certain contingents that have funded numerous studies showing how critical roadless areas are for elk.

 

[Alpine01]

I am surprised by the lack of opposition, or at least quietness, to this by certain contingents that have funded numerous studies showing how critical roadless areas are for elk.

BHA is gearing up. RMEF??

 

[Nameless Range]

BHA is gearing up. RMEF??

I would hope for an all hands on deck message.

 

[MT22]

I am surprised by the lack of opposition, or at least quietness, to this by certain contingents that have funded numerous studies showing how critical roadless areas are for elk.

Can't oppose the orange god

 

[mtmuley]

Can't oppose the orange god

Go give @Gr8bawana a hug. mtmuley

 

[Sytes]

Omitting politics:

The scale for thinning, logging vs closed off? Pro's/Con's for wildlife?

Maybe better than a blanket - across the board, regardless the setting, we place it in the hands of the District Rangers?

 

[Nameless Range]

Omitting politics:

The scale for thinning, logging vs closed off? Pro's/Con's for wildlife?

Maybe better than a blanket - across the board, regardless the setting, we place it in the hands of the District Rangers?

I think that would be way better.

That said, interacting with district Rangers and Public Lands staff over the last two years, locally educated and informed influence - be it internal to the Dept or external to the lessees, recreationists, etc - is the opposite of the direction this administration is heading. It’s top down. Local needs be damned and ignored.

 

[WVmike]

They can say whatever they want but I’d say it’s all about making more money off tourism, logging and everything else. They don’t care about the animals and the habitat until someone posts a video of something happening to an animal and everyone gets ticked off then not seeing the root cause of why there are more people to animal interactions where we are in their space not the other way around. The older and older I get the more I want to build a cabin in the middle of nowhere with nothing but tools, gun, the know how to survive and a radio and that’s it. These are the reasons why.

 

[hank4elk]

Morons amongst us...
...local Faux news this morning had the FS logo as background as they reported that the action would open the Nat. Parks to unlimited roads and logging in the Nat. Parks..................................read much?

 

[jimh406]

I get that some of you are passionate about this rule because you like to recreate in roadless areas. There are some good reasons why it "could" be good. Of course, it could destroy habitat or improve habitat depending on how it is implemented. For instance, a temporary road could be built to thin underbrush, and then decommissioned.

However, it seems you also want the "experts" to make the decisions. This seems to imply the experts would be making the decisions.

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. 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.

https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2026/08/18/usda-acts-remove-roadless-rule-restrictions-exacerbate-rising-wildfire-risk

 

[TOGIE]

I will say, Colorado and Idaho will retain their roadless rule statuses not just because the political capital required to go after them would be too great and legal hurdles too significant (though that is likely true), but because they do, in fact, provide the greater flexibility and local decision making that makes them more technically palatable to the admin; the were negotiated and compromised as their own rules apart from the national rule for these very reasons.

At the same time, the admin has long long exhausted what little "benefit of the doubt" they had in the bank or deserve. There is basically no indication that they want collaborative local control processes to play out like they did in Colorado and Idaho. If they were serious about better forest management, they would begin a process of encouraging and working with states to negotiate their own compromised versions with local leaders and forest managers instead of burning it to the ground with no plan.

Worth a comment. Hard to imagine it matters though.