Millions of acres of national forests could move toward greater logging access after the Trump administration is expected to repeal the Roadless Rule, NPR reported May 24. The conservation policy, signed under President Bill Clinton, had barred new logging and road building on tens of millions of acres of national forest, NPR said. NPR’s Kirk Siegler reported that the repeal is expected “any day now,” setting up what advocates and lawmakers see as a major shift in how roadless lands are managed.
NPR said the Trump administration moved quickly on public-land changes and sought to unwind the Roadless Rule through a fast-track approach. In the program, host Ayesha Rascoe described the rule as a longstanding mandate that kept new logging and roads out of designated roadless areas, and Siegler said the administration had directed the Forest Service to pursue the repeal.
Siegler reported that Forest Service leadership is also focused on other internal changes, including a controversial reorganization and relocation of the agency to the West. In the interview segment, Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz described the agency’s view that restrictions hamper management flexibility, saying, “Ultimately, closing areas off and not allowing for management, we think is problematic. And that’s been a focus of this administration, trying to open up access for activities that we care about.”
The Forest Service’s argument, as NPR laid out, is that repealing the Roadless Rule would provide more tools for wildfire prevention and related work. NPR reported that Schultz’s planned approach would replace the Roadless Rule with a new edict giving forest managers flexibility to allow activities such as recreation or logging in areas previously closed off, along with wildfire prevention measures in locations described by the agency as not always inaccessible or untouched.
At the same time, NPR said the debate is not just about whether wildfire mitigation matters, but about what types of actions are already being carried out and where. Siegler said the Forest Service is behind its own targets for brush clearing, thinning and prescribed fires in forests that already have roads, while pointing to the pattern of recent large wildfires that ignite in and around cities.
NPR also reported that environmentalists and Democratic lawmakers staged a protest in front of the U.S. Capitol, with demonstrators calling to protect public lands. In the segment, Siegler quoted New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, who said, “This is just being used as a pretext to scare people to say, we’ve got to get in those areas, which is about industry. It’s not about wildlife, and it’s not about fire suppression, and it’s not about people, frankly.”
Siegler said it remains an open question how interested many logging companies would be in accessing many of the protected roadless forests, which advocates and NPR described as potentially expensive or controversial. NPR further reported that the Roadless Rule has been associated with controversy and lawsuits since it was enacted in 2001, and that another round of legal battles is expected soon.