DENVER — The U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) own Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on repealing the 2001 Roadless Rule, released Wednesday, documents extensive harm from the administration’s preferred plan, including increased risk of wildfire starts and only “modest” fuel reduction gains.
According to the 333-page DEIS document released alongside the proposed rule, under Alternative 2 (USFS’s preferred option), the DEIS finds:
The agency would strip road-building and logging protections from 44.7 million acres of national forest (p. 13, 15, 21)
The agency’s preliminary biological assessment determined the plan is “likely to adversely affect” 327 threatened and endangered species and 71 designated critical habitats (p. 25, 161–162)
Repeal would increase soil erosion, landslide risk, and sediment pollution (p. 108) in watersheds that supply drinking water to roughly 24 million Americans (p. 121)
Old-growth forest that has been off-limits for 25 years would be exposed to new logging (p. 78)
The agency assumes revenue from timber sales “would [not] be sufficient to cover the costs of constructing and maintaining all new roads related to a project” (p. 45)
The rule opens the door to new oil, gas, and coal leasing on land currently protected by a no-surface-occupancy requirement (p. 58–59)
USFS’s own fire scientists warn that more roadbuilding in forests could mean more human-caused wildfire ignitions (p. 101)
The agency concedes that funding and terrain constraints would make any actual gain in fuel-treatment capacity “modest” (p. 225)
Ignition frequency and density are currently lower in roadless areas and wilderness than on other National Forest System lands (p. 24, quantified as roughly 4x lower on p. 89)
USFS’s own economists project the rule would cost up to $9 million a year in lost visitor spending in nearby communities (p. 223–224, combining $7 million in lost trail/dispersed-recreation spending and $2 million in lost wildlife-related-recreation spending)
The rule would degrade scenery and backcountry access across millions of acres of primitive and semi-primitive terrain (p. 25, 192)
The plan would add to the agency’s $6.9 billion existing road maintenance backlog (p. 43)
Federally recognized Tribes consulted overwhelmingly oppose the repeal (p. 198), citing threats to sacred sites, treaty-protected hunting and fishing, and cultural landscapes (p. 26)
Road construction and logging “could potentially have long-term negative impacts” on historic and archaeological sites nationwide (p. 196)
The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Communications Director Kate Groetzinger:
“Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and the Trump administration are trying to spin a move to subsidize the timber industry as a wildfire mitigation strategy, but the government’s own study shows repealing the Roadless Rule could actually increase wildfire risk as well as have shocking negative impacts on Western communities.
“The government’s own scientists found that repealing the Roadless Rule could harm hundreds of species already at risk of extinction, decrease the quality of drinking water in Western communities, cost rural communities millions of tourism dollars, and grow the Forest Service’s already-massive road maintenance backlog. It also found that timber sales won’t offset the cost of building and maintaining new roads.
“Despite all of these negative implications and immense public opposition, the Trump administration seems to be dead set on moving forward with this rule. Western communities must rise up and oppose this change as loudly and forcefully as possible during this month-long comment period.”
Learn more:
- Proposed rule – USFS
- Comment form for the rule – USFS
- Draft Environmental Impact Statement – USFS
- Comment analysis finds over 99% opposition to repealing 2001 Roadless Rule – CWP
- What is the “Roadless Rule”? – Sierra Club Oregon
- Roadless Rule Recission 2025 interactive map – Trout Unlimited
Feature image: USDA Photo by Preston Keres