US formally moves to erase the Roadless Rule: 59 million acres opened to roads, drinking water for 47 million on the line

US formally moves to erase the Roadless Rule: nearly 59 million acres and drinking water for 47 million on the line

The federal government has formally filed to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule, a step that would lift prohibitions on road construction and logging across nearly 59 million acres of national forest 12. Roughly three of every ten acres the Forest Service manages fall inside the rule this filing would erase.

The stakes ecologists Mariah Meek and Travis Belote tally are concrete rather than scenic: watersheds within roadless areas supply drinking water to 47 million Americans, and every inventoried roadless area shelters habitat for at least two wildlife species of conservation concern 2. But the acreage is not the sharpest signal in the story. A rule withdrawn by one administration can be restored by the next. The amendment now moving in Congress alongside the filing, attached to the Wildfire Prevention Act, is built to close that door: it would remove the Roadless Rule and prevent the US Forest Service from reinstituting it in the future 2. One instrument is reversible politics. The other is designed for permanence.

A rescission can be walked back. The amendment is built so it cannot be.

The Roadless Rule, formally the National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Policy, was issued in January 2001 by President Bill Clinton, and it drew more public comments than any other rule in history 2. The rule prohibits road construction and commercial timber harvest in inventoried roadless areas 2. This week's filing is agency action against an agency rule, and agency action cuts both ways: the comment process that built the protection can be run again by a future administration that wants it back. That asymmetry is what makes the congressional companion the document to watch. In the ecologists' words, the amendment "would both remove the Roadless Rule and prevent the US Forest Service from reinstituting it in the future" 2. A statute does not turn over with an inauguration. If the amendment passes, the Forest Service has no path back to its own rule.

What nearly 59 million acres actually holds

The tally Meek and Belote published on August 22 covers what is left after road building has left only about 5 percent of the contiguous US as inventoried roadless area or wilderness 2:

• Nearly 59 million acres of national forest would lose prohibitions on road construction and logging 2.
• 14,779,000 acres of inventoried roadless land sit in southeast Alaska, roughly one acre in four of the total at stake 2.
• Watersheds within roadless areas supply drinking water to 47 million Americans 2.
• Every inventoried roadless area provides habitat for at least two wildlife species of conservation concern; the median area supports 10 of these species, and some Arizona areas support up to 62 2.
• Roadless areas appear in 38 states plus Puerto Rico, concentrated in the West and southeast Alaska 2.

The comment clock, as of August 22, had not yet started ticking

The proposal carries a 30-day public comment period, and it does not start with the filing or the headlines. It starts when the notice is published in the Federal Register 2. As of the ecologists' August 22 publication, that had not yet happened 2. The week, assembled from coverage timestamps:

• August 18: Reuters and The Hill report the administration's move against the rule 1.
• August 19: MeatEater urges readers to speak up now 1.
• August 20: Alaska Public Media reports the federal government has officially filed 1.
• August 21: WABI reports the move drawing criticism from environmentalists 1.
• August 22: the ecologists publish their tally, with Federal Register publication still pending 2.

The administration's stated case is economic: it argues the rule has slowed development 2. The ecologists' countercase is that roads carry costs of their own, from sediment in streams to fragmented wildlife habitat, and they cite research finding that fires are more likely to start in areas with roads than in areas without 2, a finding that sits oddly next to the name of the act carrying the amendment.

So there are two clocks, and they are not equivalent. The administrative one starts at Federal Register publication and runs 30 days 2. The legislative one runs at Congress's pace, and it is the only track that could make the change permanent against every future administration 2. A lost regulation can be reissued. A statute has to be repealed.