USDA Moves to Rescind National Roadless Area Rule
Federal officials propose eliminating 2001 restrictions to give local forest managers greater flexibility in reducing Western wildfire risks.
Federal agricultural officials have proposed completely rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, a policy that restricted road construction and timber harvesting across tens of millions of acres of national forest land.
According to a proposed rule filed by the U.S. Forest Service in the Federal Register, eliminating the blanket national restriction is intended to hand decision-making authority back to local forest managers, state governments and tribal leaders.
The 2001 Roadless Rule applied to more than 44 million acres of the 193-million-acre National Forest System. Federal officials stated that more than 40% of these inventoried areas—located primarily in the West—face high or very high wildfire hazard potential, while only 5% have received hazardous fuels reduction treatments over the last decade. Furthermore, 11.3 million acres of these protected lands sit adjacent to existing roads.
Rescinding the rule will not automatically mandate timber harvesting or road construction. Instead, future management decisions will be integrated into standard, local forest-level land management planning frameworks guided by local natural resource conditions and existing environmental regulations.
More than 95% of inventoried roadless areas fall within 10 Western states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The proposed rescission does not apply to national forests in Colorado and Idaho, which remain governed by separate state-specific roadless regulations.
A public comment period on the proposed rule and its accompanying draft environmental impact statement is open through Sept. 21 via Regulations.gov.
About the Author
Jesse Jacobs is Assistant Editor of EPOnline.com.
