What is the Roadless Rule?
The Roadless Area Conservation Rule is administered by the U.S. Forest Service and protects the last remaining “wildlands” in our national forests. Implemented in 2001, during the last days of the Clinton administration, the Roadless Rule places about one-third of the national forests off limits to virtually all road building, logging and development.
Are roadless areas the same as wilderness areas?
Roadless areas are different than wilderness areas essentially because of the way the designated forest lands are managed. The 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, unlike the establishment of wilderness areas, permits a wide range of activities in roadless areas. Permitted activities include timber harvesting for limited purposes, livestock grazing, off-highway vehicle use, and oil and gas development that do not require new roads to continue in roadless areas. Unlike wilderness areas, which are protected by Congress under the Wilderness Act, roadless areas do not have a final rule and have been prescribed individual state-specific rules as well as nationwide prohibitions under different administrations.
What is the background of the Roadless Rule?
The Roadless Rule was first issued by President Bill Clinton's administration in January 2001, as a national guideline, ending virtually all logging, road building and development in America's wildest remaining national forests. But, in 2004, the Bush administration issued a new state-by-state rule that would allow state governors to petition the U.S. Forest Service regarding how much land they want protected in their state. In 2005, Clinton's rule was officially abandoned leaving the use and protection of the land up to state governors. On September 20, 2006, a federal district court ordered reinstatement of the Clinton-era Roadless Rule to protect almost 50 million acres of wild national forests and grasslands from road building, logging and development. The Bush administration immediately appealed that decision and then went back to the states and asked them to resubmit their petitions and re-start the entire rulemaking process. On the same day, Idaho Gov. Jim Risch was the first governor to file a petition opposing most of the roadless rule protections, potentially affecting around 9 million acres of roadless land in his state. For a complete timeline of the rule visit EarthJustice.org
The Roadless Rule has been in place for almost 20 years, and kept there by an activist judge.
The rule is overly broad, has no scientific backing and has certainly contributed to the wildfire outbreaks we see every summer.
And yet it is treated as sacrosanct.
Think “earth island” wildlife migration corridors” and all the “man and the biosphere” types want to shackle people with.