Tomorrow, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service, will publish a 15-day extension to the comment period on the Trump administration’s plan to eliminate the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The public now has until October 6th to submit comments on the proposed rescission.
Last year’s comment period on the administration’s Notice of Intent garnered over 600,000 comments in 21 days. An analysis conducted by the Forest Service of those comments found that 99% (DEIS, page 9) supported continued protections for Roadless Areas and opposed the administration’s efforts to eliminate them.
“Even with this brief extension, the Trump administration’s process falls far short of the robust and meaningful public engagement that established the Roadless Rule 25 years ago,” said Sami Godlove, Central Oregon Field Coordinator for Oregon Wild. “Our public lands and the people who value them deserve better.”
Before the Roadless Rule was originally adopted in 2001, the Forest Service provided a total of 129 days for the public to comment on the Notice of Intent and the Proposed Roadless Rule and held more than 400 public meetings across the country after issuing the proposed rule. When the Bush administration unlawfully sought to rescind the Rule in 2005, the Forest Service ultimately offered over 120 days for public comment on the proposed rescission.
Read Oregon Wild’s analysis here.
Congresswoman Andrea Salinas led a letter in Congress, signed by 164 lawmakers and including the entire Oregon delegation except Representative Cliff Bentz, calling on the agency to extend the comment period:
“Over the past 25 years, the rule has helped protect watersheds, biodiversity, and ecosystem integrity by limiting road construction and large-scale logging in undeveloped areas. Forest Service data show that watersheds within roadless areas are far more likely to be in “properly functioning” condition compared to those outside of them, which are more often classified as “at risk” or “impaired.”
In addition to concerns that drinking water quality would be impacted, analysis from the Forest Service also shows that the elimination of the Roadless Rule would result in millions of dollars of lost outdoor recreation income, imperil wildlife, spread invasive species, and increase fire risk.
The Roadless Area Conservation Rule protects roughly 45 million acres across the country and 2 million in Oregon. Protected Roadless Areas include Larch Mountain, Lost Lake, and the Salmon River Trail (Mount Hood National Forest), Iron Mountain and Hardesty Mountain (Willamette National Forest), Oregon Dunes (Siuslaw National Forest), Lookout Mountain (Ochoco National Forest), Joseph Canyon (Wallowa-Whitman National Forest), and Tumalo Mountain (Deschutes National Forest).
This story is based on submitted information and has not been verified by our news team.
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