SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The Trump administration plans to rescind a nearly quarter-century-old rule that blocked logging on national forest lands, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Monday.
The so-called roadless rule adopted in the last days of Bill Clinton's presidency in 2001 long has chafed Republican lawmakers, especially in the West where national forests sprawl across vast, mountainous terrain and the logging industry has waned.
The roadless rule impeded road construction and “responsible timber production” that would have helped reduce the risk of major wildfires, Rollins said at the annual meeting of the Western Governors Association.
“This move opens a new era of consistency and sustainability for our nation’s forests," Rollins said.
The rule has affected 30% of national forest lands nationwide, or about 59 million acres (24 million hectares), according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency over the Forest Service.
State roadless-area rules in Idaho and Colorado supersede the boundaries of the 2001 roadless rule, according to the USDA, meaning not all national forest land would be affected by a rescission.
The announcement comes amid recent talk of selling off federal lands in part to improve housing affordability, an idea criticized by Democrats as a public land grab. Selling public lands drew a mixed reception from governors at the same meeting.
Several hundred protesters gathered outside the summit in Santa Fe, chanting ‘Not For Sale’ and drumming.
The roadless area change meanwhile marks a sharp turnaround from the Biden administration, which far from opening up more areas to timber harvesting sought to do more to restrict logging and protect old-growth forests.
Environmental groups, who want to keep restrictions on logging and road-building for places such as Alaska's Tongass National Forest, criticized the possibility of rolling back the protections.
“Any attempt to revoke it is an attack on the air and water we breathe and drink, abundant recreational opportunities which millions of people enjoy each year, havens for wildlife and critical buffers for communities threatened by increasingly severe wildfire seasons,” Josh Hicks, conservation campaigns director at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement on the USDA’s plans.
Contrary to what Rollins said about reducing wildfire risk, logging exacerbates climate change and makes wildfires more intense, said Center for Western Priorities political director Rachael Hamby.
“This is nothing more than a massive giveaway to timber companies at the expense of every American and the forests that belong to all of us,” Hamby said in a statement.
In Alaska, home to the country's largest national forest, the Tongass, the roadless rule has long been a focus of litigation, with state political leaders supporting an exemption to the rule that they argue impedes economic opportunities.
During the latter part of President Donald Trump’s first term, the federal government lifted restrictions on logging and road-building in the Tongass, something the Biden administration later reversed.
Trump in January called for reverting to the policy from his first term as part of an Alaska-specific executive order aimed at boosting oil and gas development, mining and logging in the state.
The Tongass is a temperate rainforest of glaciers and rugged coastal islands. It provides habitat to wildlife such as bears, wolves, salmon and bald eagles.
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Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska. Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Matthew Daly in Washington, D.C., and Matthew Brown in Helena, Montana, contributed to this report.
