The U.S. Forest Service filed a plan Tuesday to strip road-building and logging protections from around 45 million acres of national forest land.
The “roadless rule” restricts building roads, commercial logging and other large-scale development on a huge swath of national forest land. Environmental groups say the rule has protected watersheds and wildlife habitat from decades of disturbance.
But far from being universally adored, the rule endured years of litigation after it was finalized by the Clinton administration in 2001. For years, business groups and some Western states have argued that the rule is too restrictive.
United States Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who oversees the Forest Service, framed the proposed repeal as a way to improve wildfire prevention and give more flexibility to land managers.
“For too long, outdated restrictions have kept tens of millions of forested acres off-limits to the very treatments that improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk to our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,” said Rollins in a statement.
Increased logging part of the plan
That argument, however, has been widely panned by environmental groups, who say scrapping the rule would spoil some national forest and be a boon to the timber industry.
Last year, the Trump administration announced its intention to dramatically increase logging on public lands. Rescinding the “roadless rule” could lead to more roads that are used to access timber.
“This administration is walking away from the most successful land conservation policy in modern American history,” said Andrew Wetzler, a Natural Resources Defense Council vice president, in a statement.
Environmental groups say that because humans cause most wildfires, killing the rule could lead to more ignitions if people start venturing more into previously hard-to-reach forests.
“Opening our backcountry forests to more roads and development, and therefore more ignitions, is also not a wildfire solution, and never will be,” said Josh Hicks, Director of Conservation Campaigns at The Wilderness Society, in a statement.
Colorado and Idaho exempt
Colorado and Idaho are exempt from the move because they have their own roadless rules developed with the federal government. In Colorado, more than 4 million acres are protected as roadless, and more than a million acres have higher protection than under the federal rule, according to the Forest Service.
Rollins first announced that the Forest Service would kill the rule in June 2025; the agency has received hundreds of thousands of public comments since then, according to the environmental group Earthjustice. Tuesday’s filing means the agency is moving into the final stages of rescinding the rule.
The public has until Sept. 21 to comment on the proposed rule and draft environmental impact statement. Once the administration finalizes the proposal, which may be later this year, it is likely to face litigation.
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