The US Forest Service received more than one million public comments opposing the proposed repeal of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which protects approximately 45 million acres of national forest from road building and commercial logging. Conservation groups say a full repeal would degrade prime public-land hunting and fishing habitat. A final decision is not expected until early 2027.
On October 6, the US Forest Service closed the window on a 45-day public comment period for its proposed repeal of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Established in 2001, the rule prohibits some forms of road building and all commercial-scale logging on approximately 45 millions acres of USFS lands across the country.
Conservation groups like Trout Unlimited (TU) have long argued in support of keeping the Roadless Rule intact. They say the rule’s rescission would severely degrade some of America’s best public-land hunting-and-fishing destinations by stripping away key habitat protections for game and fish.
While the Federal Register only shows some 371,000 public comments on the plan to repeal the Roadless Rule, various conservation organizations collected a huge amount of additional comments that aren’t reflected in Forest Service’s final online tally, TU tells Field & Stream.
“These conservation groups created a tracking system to tally up the total number of comments gathered and submitted from each organization,” says Corey Fisher, Public Lands Policy Director for Trout Unlimited. “This tracking system reflected more than one million comments collectively gathered and submitted by more than 100 coordinating partners.”
All told, Americans submitted roughly 1,037,000 comments between August and October, Fisher says. The Center for Western Priorities combed the 370,238 public comments submitted directly through regulations.gov and found that 99.1 percent oppose the plan to fully repeal the Roadless Rule. Their full analysis shows that 367,043 commenters oppose the Trump Administration’s plan to overturn the rule, while 1,922 commenters support it. An additional 1,273 comments were either neutral or off topic.
Through its channels, TU collected and submitted more than 17,000 public comments in support of the Roadless Rule. “Roadless areas represent the best of America,” said TU President and CEO Chris Wood in a statement shared with F&S. “They test our mettle and toughness as a people while providing clean drinking water, fish and wildlife habitat, and some of the most amazing hunting and fishing experiences on the planet. It’s no surprise that millions of hunters and anglers and Americans from all walks of life have banded together with one simple message: keep it roadless. When the dust settles, it’s this outpouring of support that will make it easier to reinstate protections for roadless areas down the line.”
Conservation groups don’t expect a final decision from the Forest Service until early 2027. Given its recent messaging, the Administration is likely to move forward with a full repeal of the Roadless Rule despite the public pushback. If that happens, Fisher says there’s a chance individual states could retain their Roadless acreage by creating state-level versions of the Roadless Rule. Both Idaho and Colorado implemented state-level Roadless Rule protections during the Bush Administration. Those states have therefore been exempt from the current push to repeal the Roadless Rule.
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“I think we’re going to at least see some support for those kinds of state-level rules going forward,” Fisher says, “that could potentially include a number states that have opposed the repeal and would like to put protections back in place, as well as states looking for additional management flexibility. Even if the Roadless Rule is repealed, there are still opportunities before us to maintain protections for these landscapes.”
When more than a million Americans comment on a federal land rule in 45 days, that number means something. The Roadless Rule has never been just a policy abstraction. It is the reason some of the best elk country and blue-ribbon trout water still exist in the condition they do. Conservation groups are already signaling that even if a federal repeal moves forward, state-level protections remain a viable fallback. Hunters and anglers who care about where they hunt and fish have a clear stake in watching how this plays out through 2027.
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1 Comment
I agree with the opposition to this”Roadless Rule” legislation from this current” Administration”. These current politicians in power don’t seem to care about the wilderness areas in North America, or in the world for that matter. Don’t think many of them have ever stepped out of their back yard, if they even have one. Hopefully the people who speak for the critters and the land that they inhabit, will prevail. Don’t forget to vote these politicians out of office and get a change in Washington DC.