USDA Moves to Scrap the Roadless Rule, Opening Nearly 45 Million Acres of National Forest to Roads and Logging

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced on Tuesday that the U.S. Forest Service had filed a proposed rule to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule in its entirety. The Clinton-era rule blocks road construction, and by extension most logging and mining, across tens of millions of acres of national forest. "It's time to turn the page on the failed roadless rule and return our forests to health and productivity," Rollins said, citing overgrown stands, insect outbreaks and wildfire risk. Republican governors of Montana, Utah and Wyoming were quoted supporting the change in the same USDA release.

The roadless rule has been a central conservation policy for a quarter century, and rescinding it would shift land-use decisions on a large share of the National Forest System from a single national standard to local forest managers.

Public comment on the proposal and the draft environmental impact statement runs through September 21, 2026. Earthjustice attorney Drew Caputo called the rule "the most important land protection measure of the last 60 years." Taxpayers for Common Sense president Steve Ellis warned repeal would add to an existing Forest Service road maintenance backlog.