Mount St. Helens from the Dark Divide Roadless Area, Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

During a meeting of the Western Governors’ Association in New Mexico last Monday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that her department has initiated the process to revoke the 2001 Roadless Rule. The rule, enacted at the end of Clinton’s final term, prohibits road construction, road reconstruction, and timber harvesting across 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas within the National Forest System.

According to the final rule, roadless areas help maintain high-quality soil, water, and air; serve as vital sources of public drinking water; support plant and animal diversity, protecting threatened and endangered species; and preserve traditional cultural properties and sacred sites. However, much like Trump’s executive order in March, which asked agencies to increase timber production on federal land, the administration is framing this move as an environmental issue, claiming that restricting road development in the National Park System hinders the Forest Service’s ability to manage fire risk effectively.

Rollins’s statement raises two key issues. The administration says that roadless areas hinder economic development and forest management efforts. With the first issue, the administration is implying a preference for private, rather than federal, development, without stating it directly. The current National Forest System comprises 368,102 miles of roads and 6,728 bridges, most of which were constructed approximately 60 years ago. Due to limited resources, the Forest Service’s deferred maintenance for those roads and bridges, encompassing its system-wide maintenance backlog, was estimated at over $8.6 billion in fiscal year 2023. That number climbed to $10.8 billion in 2024 (Figure 1). It would seem strange for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to invest in new infrastructure when so much already needs to be repaired, unless the government was planning to privatize roadless areas. The latest move will not, as Rollins put it, allow “future generations of Americans to enjoy and reap the benefits of this great land.” The clear intent is to allow corporations to mine the landscape for resources, leaving little behind for future generations of Americans.

Figure 1

On the second issue, the rule in 2001 actually took into account feedback from stakeholders on forest management. The final rule includes this line: “Forest health treatments for the purposes of improving threatened, endangered, proposed, or sensitive species habitat or maintaining or restoring the characteristics of ecosystem composition and structure, such as reducing the risk of uncharacteristic wildfire effects, will be allowed where access can be gained through existing roads or by equipment not requiring roads.” Granted, limited access to roadless areas can impede thinning efforts or firefighter response to fires, but what really hurts forest management efforts is constantly cutting the Forest Service’s budget and firing the federal employees responsible for doing that work. If the Trump administration’s true goal were fire prevention, it would be investing more money in fire prevention, not less. There is also the tiny issue that research has found timber harvesting can increase fire severity and releases stored carbon into the atmosphere, creating warmer, drier temperatures that exacerbate fires.

So, are there any measures states can take to minimize the harmful effects of this move?

Since the rule went into effect, two states — Idaho and Colorado — have adopted state roadless area rules that supersede federal requirements. Both states’ regulations expand upon or explicitly address topics not covered in the 2001 rule, including wildland fire, fish habitat, surface occupancy, and energy and mineral development. Both states, however, include provisions that weaken protections for some areas and strengthen them for others. In these cases, protections would be stronger under the federal rule. Other states have attempted to circumvent the federal rule in similar ways. Alaska and Utah petitioned the Forest Service in 2018 for their own roadless area rules, and the Trump administration approved one for Alaska. Instead of increasing protection of the state’s old-growth forests, the new Alaska rule under Trump lifted impedimentsto development in Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. President Biden reversed this decision in 2023.

There is one positive aspect of state-specific roadless area rules. In the case of Colorado, the state rule is protecting areas from Trump’s move. Officials in Colorado have already confirmed that the state’s rule — which was finalized in 2012 and protects 4.2 million roadless acres — will not be included in the rescission. Without federal protections, state laws take effect. Why can’t other states do the same?

It’s a matter of planning. Western states, which are the most at risk, need to prepare for how to handle the issue with future administrations. More states should implement roadless area regulations that are tailored to their distinct landscapes and ecological characteristics. Lawmakers in bluer states such as California, Oregon, Washington, and New Mexico should consider how to protect their forests from the influence of strategic political actions at the federal level.

Another way states and local governments can fight the rescission is by taking legal action against the USDA. States can sue when a federal action harms their citizens in a manner that affects a unique state interest. In this case, pollution from development can impact soil, water, and air quality, and poorly managed timber plantations can increase wildfire risk. While the Trump administration has been dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency, most states have their own laws and environmental regulatory agencies, which often have more nuanced and specific requirements.

If the USDA truly cared about roads and forest management, the agency would invest in those areas and the necessary human capital to maintain the nation’s forests. Instead, the Trump administration is more interested in turning over more of America’s land to corporate interests. By combining state-level regulatory efforts with potential legal challenges, states can work to mitigate the harmful effects of this rescission and protect their natural resources for future generations. For now, local action is the most effective response to federal abuses.

This first appeared on CEPR.

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