Trump Administration Seeks Full Repeal of Roadless Rule

The Trump administration announced that it is seeking to fully rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (“Roadless Rule”), which bars road building on more than 44 million acres of federal forest land.

NAHB supports repealing the Roadless Rule because it is overly restrictive, limits state and local land management, and unnecessarily prevents responsible federal timber harvesting. While the rescission would remove the national designation of roadless areas, it would not require timber cutting or road construction. Instead, it would return decisions about roadless areas to local forest managers.

Because the nation imports more than 25% of the softwood lumber needed to build new homes, NAHB believes responsibly opening federal forest lands is an important step toward increasing domestic timber production for American home owners and home buyers.

In a press release announcing that the U.S. Forest Service has filed a proposed rule to rescind the Roadless Rule, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said that “our forests can’t afford another decade of inaction. Across the country, we’ve watched preventable conditions — overgrown stands, insect outbreaks and disease — turn healthy landscapes into tinderboxes. For too long, outdated restrictions have kept tens of millions of forested acres off-limits to the very treatments that improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk to our communities.

“Today, we filed a proposal to restore authority to local forest managers who know the land best, removing the barriers that have kept them from doing the work the land demands. It’s time to turn the page on the failed Roadless Rule and return our forests to health and productivity.”

For 25 years, the 2001 Roadless Rule restricted road construction and limited the Forest Service’s ability to carry out critical active management work within inventoried roadless areas

The agency will invite public comment on the proposal and the draft environmental impact statement filed in the Federal Register.

More than 95% of inventoried roadless areas are located in 10 Western states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The proposed rule would not apply to national forests in Colorado or Idaho, which are governed by separate state-specific roadless regulations.

Comments on the proposed rule and draft environmental impact statement may be submitted through Regulations.gov. Comments are due by midnight on Sept. 21. Additional information is available on the Forest Service Roadless Areas webpage.