Read the comments.

Hello, I oppose rescinding the Roadless Rule without clear safeguards as this could expose mature and old-growth forests to unnecessary commercial harvesting and permanent road construction. Before changing the rule, I respectfully ask the Forest Service to establish enforceable protections for existing old-growth trees and ecologically significant mature forests. Any exceptions should allow legitimate wildfire prevention, public safety and ecological restoration while preventing those exceptions from becoming a pathway for unnecessary commercial removal of irreplaceable old trees. These forests took CENTURIES to develop and cannot simply be replaced by planting new trees (many of which die in a few days). Please preserve responsible forest-management tools while adding clear protections for the mature and old-growth forests we cannot replace. You do not want this country to be a forest-less country. We have beautiful landscapes, but they are only beautiful if people protect them.

Re: Rescission of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, Docket FS-2025-0001 Camping, rafting, and backpacking throughout the West has been part of my entire life. I rely on these places for solitude and the chance to connect with nature, and the proposed rescission of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule threatens both. I oppose it. The agency's own record undermines the wildfire rationale at the center of this proposal. The DEIS states: "Building a road into a forest at high risk from uncharacteristic wildfire effects could increase the incidence of human-caused fires. A human-caused wildland fire is nearly five times more likely to occur on essentially roaded lands than on essentially unroaded lands." That finding sits in the same document being used to justify opening these areas. The agency must explain how it can cite wildfire management as a reason for rescission while its own analysis documents that road access drives ignition rates upward. I ask that the agency explain why this proposal departs from those prior findings and how it reconciles the rescission with its own conclusions about ignition risk. The ignition data makes the contradiction more precise, not less. The DEIS reports that "Human-caused ignition density is 22.4 fires per million acres per year on roaded National Forest System land against 3.0 inside the affected roadless areas (DEIS Table 21, 2014-2024), and the DEIS states that human-caused ignitions increase in abundance with proximity to roads." A ratio that wide is not a rounding error. The places I have spent my life traveling through, camping and backpacking in the backcountry of the West, are precisely the kind of low-ignition environments this data describes. The agency has not explained how new road access into these areas would produce a net improvement in fire conditions. It must quantify the expected increase in human-caused ignitions from new road access and weigh that number honestly against any claimed reduction in wildfire hazard. Access to clean water should be a basic human right. Adding roadways to America's already over-taxed watersheds will do irreparable harm, and the agency's own analysis does not contradict that concern. The DEIS acknowledges that roads and their facilities can produce up to 90 percent of the sediment from a timber sale. The watersheds fed by these roadless areas supply drinking water to millions of people. Opening them to road construction is not a reversible experiment. The agency should explain what safeguards, if any, it has analyzed that would prevent the kind of sediment loading its own documents describe, and it should respond to the water quality implications of this rescission. The regulatory flexibility certification in this rulemaking does not hold up. "The proposed rule certifies no significant impact on small entities while the DEIS names outfitters, guides and tour operators as affected and its own Cost Benefit Analysis books lost recreation benefit at a minimum of $6.1 million a year." The no-impact conclusion is reached by spreading projected losses across every small firm in the sector nationally, rather than examining the outfitters and guides who actually hold permits in the affected areas. Some of those firms may lose these receipts entirely. Spreading the damage thinly across a national average does not make it disappear for the businesses actually exposed. The agency should withdraw the certification and assess the impact on the specific small entities operating inside the potentially affected roadless areas. Finally, the agency has not fulfilled its own invitation. "The proposal solicits 'any reliance interests in the current rule that could be affected by this proposal' (91 FR 53830-31), and the Cost Benefit Analysis weighs none." This comment is one such interest. I have organized my outdoor life around the existence of these protected areas. Under established administrative law, an agency reversing a longstanding policy must assess the reliance interests its prior rule created, not merely ask for them and then set them aside. The agency must identify and weigh the reliance interests described in the comments it receives, including this one. Sincerely, Kate Lips Salt Lake City, UT

I like the roadless rule. And world like it to remain.

RE: Docket Number FS-2025-0001 or RIN 0596-AD66 I am writing to submit my comments regarding rescinding the Roadless Rule, Docket Number FS-2025-0001 or RIN 0596-AD66. I respectfully request that the Roadless Rule remain in full force. I reside adjacent to the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Klickitat County. As a lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest, I treasure the natural beauty it offers and hold dear the preservation of areas intended to serve nature solely for itself without the threat of human pressures. As a small forest owner/steward I know how impactful any type of disturbance can be to the ecosystem. We spent five weeks witnessing the destruction of 44 acres of the parcel that borders us on two sides while they installed roads and clear-cut last summer (June 2025). The logging trucks start rolling (four per hour at a minimum) in at 2:30 AM and the feller buncher fires up at the very same time, running for ten to twelve hours- six days a week. A decibel meter registered readings of 95 db. for many hours over the course of the day. It was impossible to sleep and the production of our flock of chickens dropped to less than half for the duration of the logging operations. Those are just two of the impacts, there were many more to ourselves and the surrounding community. Every type of wildlife left for the duration of the logging, and it took until this spring for them to begin to return. Our forests had been planted at the same time, and the trees were more than 75 years old- young in the life of a forest and a lifetime for most humans. Our adjoining parcels contain extensive wetlands, seasonal waterways, and ponds. None of these were protected from the destruction and oversight to ensure that setbacks were observed was non-existent. The impact was and has been intense, causing tremendous flooding where it had not occurred previously. Water and precipitation at our elevation (2000’) is precious and would have stayed higher in the watershed had those trees still been there and the wetlands not been demolished during the logging. We are in our fourth year of drought here in the northwest and every drop feels precious. Our pond is the lowest we’ve ever witnessed in the 10 plus years we’ve owned. I share our experience in the hope that you will closely consider the ALL of the potential impacts of rescinding the Roadless Rule- both short term and long term. Our forests are under tremendous pressure, at a time when we need them more than ever to help offset climate change. Humans have spent the past three centuries creating monocultures, including in our forests. The lack of complex ecosystems has dramatically impacted the health of our forests, and now policy makers, Department of Natural resources, and logging interests are using the perceived threat of forest fires to push a narrative of burning to enhance forest health. Rescinding the roadless rule will have tremendous impacts that will take generations to repair. The Roadless Rule helps preserve: •Clean Water for Communities •Wildlife Habitat and Biodiversity •Outdoor Recreation and Local Economies •Natural Resilience •Threaten Tribal Sovereignty and access to traditional, sacred gathering grounds. Any action taken that will reduce these restrictions puts these pristine areas at risk. Most Sincerely, Jennifer Sharp 12 Pyatt Rd., White Salmon, WA 98672

Protect the Roadless Rule. It is good for wildlife and our lands.

I am dishearted by our government attempting to rescind the roadless rule. Areas protected by this rule should not be sacrificed and destroyed. We need nature and nature deserves protections, not to be endlessly extracted from!

Dear Regulators As a life-long lover of both roads and forests, I am writing to strongly reject repealing the 2001 "Roadless Rule". I understand that this rule was put in place to protect vital habitats across the United States - and to slow the spread of development and deforestation. In my lifetime, I have seen how one road can lead to many roads which then create a criss-cross effect that breaks up and ultimately destroys habitats. I have seen water rights extended to commercial operators in National Forests - with roads and pipelines damaging the ecosystem and taxpayers footing the bill for their access. I do not believe local forest leaders should be able to remove protections from these designated lands - overseeing their activities would be costly and complicated - who would provide oversight or enforcement of local protections? • The Proposal: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and U.S. Forest Service proposed repealing the 2001 rule, which protects roughly 45 to 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless national forest lands from most commercial logging and new road construction. • The Administration's Rationale: Proponents of the repeal argue it will reduce regulatory burdens, transfer management flexibility to local forest leaders, and help mitigate severe wildfire risks and insect outbreaks through active forest management. Removing national protections threatens critical wildlife habitats, compromises clean drinking water sources for millions of Americans, and could increase wildfire risks by opening remote backcountry areas to commercial activities. If you are truly concerned about mitigating severe wildfire risks, then consider a different kind of de-regulation: one in which the First People lead the management of these forests - this would achieve the same result, transferring national control to regionally-relavant managers, while still maintaining a cohesive protection that extends across all National Forests. The federal government would still provide oversight and enforcement, but local indigenous management would be able to steward the forests regionally. Thank you for your consideration, J. DIDIER, Los Angeles, CA

Forests are very important for wildlife, but forests also mean many different things to many different people in ways i cannot describe, we don't need roads that cut through these untouched places. so please keep these forests safe

I oppose the proposal to fully or partially rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. I live in Washington State and regularly use public lands in Oregon and throughout the West for hiking, camping, climbing, and recreation. The repeal of the Roadless Rule will put public lands in danger for current and future generations' fresh water, will increase risk of forest fires, and introduce development without appropriate planning or regulation. For the reasons listed above, fully or partially rescinding the Roadless Rule under Alternatives 2 and 3 of the draft EIS would be a grave mistake. I oppose the proposal to rescind or alter the Roadless Rule and support Alternative 1, the No Action alternative. thank you.

I strongly oppose eliminating the Roadless Rule. These protections safeguard some of our nation’s most valuable undeveloped public lands, wildlife habitat, clean water, and outdoor recreation opportunities. Once these areas are opened to roads and development, the damage can be permanent. Please preserve the Roadless Rule and protect these public lands for future generations.

I am a lifelong hiker and backpacker, a kayaker, a forager, a naturalist, a lover of wild places. The Roadless Rule has had a deeply impactful and beneficial role in protecting what small amount of wilderness is left to Turtle Island. Roads do so much harm, from introducing invasive species, creating erosion, increasing the risk of wildfire, and facilitating the wanton extraction of our last remaining stands of wild timber. Even as an outdoor enthusiast who has used and appreciated roads that take me deep into the wilderness, I firmly oppose and weakening or rewriting of the roadless rule that would create more roads. We do not need more roads. We do not need more access. We need stewardship. We need ecosystem repair, we need clean water and fish habitat and places where mountain lions, bears, otters, wolves, and other wild creatures can take refuge. What has been done to our natural history and our ecosystems is criminal and ugly. The shame of it should haunt us all for generations. We must not cut the last trees, mine the last bedrock. We don't need more roads, don't need more access for multinational companies to strip our wilderness of resources. We need courage and integrity from our leaders, not a short-sighted selloff destined to benefit only a few, while despoiling our last wild places. Protect the Roadless Rule. Protect our water and our forests and our earth and our history. No new roads. No more extraction. The only honorable action is one of resistance to this onslaught of extractive greed and terror. I will lay down in front of the bulldozers rather than see more of this horrific harm from this morally bankrupt, intellectually corrupt, and utterly vile administration. Protect the Roadless Rule.

Submit your public comment opposing the repeal of the Roadless Rule. Here's a comment you can use: I am firmly against USDA’s proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule. Roadless national forests represent some of the last unspoiled public forest landscapes. They safeguard clean drinking water, wildlife habitats, salmon streams, old growth forests, outdoor recreation, and essential areas relied upon by communities, Tribal Nations, and future generations. Once these lands are disrupted by new roads, logging, and industrial access, the damage cannot be easily reversed. The USDA should not dismantle a national protection that has shielded roadless forests for over twenty years. The current Roadless Rule already enables necessary measures to mitigate wildfire risk, so rescinding it is unnecessary for community safety. In reality, more roads may increase human ignition risk, habitat fragmentation, erosion, and long-term management costs. Additionally, rescinding the rule could transfer protection decisions to local planning processes, making intact forests more susceptible to political pressure and short-sighted extraction. Public forests should be managed for clean water, biodiversity, climate resilience, Indigenous stewardship, and public good, not for increased roadbuilding and logging. Please withdraw the proposed repeal, retain the 2001 Roadless Rule, and select the strongest alternative to protect roadless areas throughout the National Forest System. Thank you for taking my comment into account.

I am a sentient member of this planet that we call home EARTH. It makes me sick to my core how the natural world and her living creatures are being treated. Sick. I have no great words of persuasion. Listen to Jane Goodall. She was wise beyond her limited time. Listen to the Native Americans. They have ALWAYS known the way. We have got to be better stewards for the next generations. Do not sell out nor lose faith. Do the right thing! PLEASE!

Please keep the Roadless Rules intact for our national parks!! I cherish the quiet solitude that hiking in our national forests and on our coastline brings me! It is important to have an escape to untouched nature!

I support keeping the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and protecting these areas from development!!!

I strongly oppose the repeal of the 2001 roadless area conservation rule because building new roads in our national forest harms wildlife increases erosion, and risks human caused wildfires.

Yes, please open up all the public land so we can all enjoy it and firefighters can get to areas on fire easier.

Roadless areas matter to me Greatly because they are critical for biodiversity and biodiversity is critical for life on earth as we know it. Roadless areas allow for species to survive and thrive - as soon as you cut a road through, the species depending on roadless areas suffer and then everything downstream suffers as a result. Everything is and all species are interconnected in the web of life. Protect and defend our roadless areas. They are a public treasure not to be tampered with.

To the USDA Roadless Rule Team: As a Coloradan, and a wildlife enthusiast, I believe the 2001 rule is the single most important land management instrument and the threat of its removal is not only catastrophic but infuriating. Every year, I take a fall trip to explore these beautiful mountains and every year I am left with wonder. Seeing new wildlife, a new sunset, a new plant, a riverbed - it never ceases to amaze me. The protection of these ecosystems are imperative for us, but also for all. Being able to backpack through these undisturbed mountains and connect with other life is one of the few things that bring me joy and peace in such a hectic world. Roads end that possibility. Regarding the Mount Antero in the Pike & San Isabel NFs- Alpine and Subalpine Climate Refugia Connectivity — The area spans from 13,600 feet to 14,276 feet across multiple subalpine and alpine ecosystem types—Rocky Mountain subalpine spruce-fir forest, alpine tundra, and bristlecone pine woodland—creating an intact elevational gradient that allows species to shift their ranges as climate conditions change. This vertical connectivity is critical as warming temperatures push suitable habitat upslope; species dependent on cool conditions can only persist if they can move continuously to higher elevations without fragmentation. Road construction fragments this gradient by creating edge effects, altering microclimate through canopy removal, and introducing invasive species along disturbed corridors, which would trap populations in lower-elevation refugia that are becoming increasingly unsuitable. DEIS Narrative Exceeds the 150-Page Statutory Limit With No Extraordinary-Complexity Determination on the Record The Draft EIS exceeds the statutory page limit and contains no determination authorizing it to do so. Volume I of the Draft EIS is 333 pages. Its narrative text runs from the Introduction at page 9 through page 248. References Cited occupies pages 249 through 285, and the List of Appendices and Appendices 1 through 5 occupy pages 286 through 333. Excluding citations and appendices, as the statute directs, the environmental impact statement is therefore approximately 240 pages long. The applicable limit is 150 pages. 42 U.S.C. 4336a, enacted by the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, limits an environmental impact statement to 150 pages excluding citations and appendices, and permits 300 pages only where the proposed agency action is of extraordinary complexity. USDA's NEPA procedures implement the same limits at 7 CFR 1b.7(a) and (i). The Draft EIS expressly adopts those procedures, stating at page 9 that the Forest Service "has prepared this draft environmental impact statement (EIS) in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other relevant laws and regulations," and that "all references to 7 CFR 1b within this document refer to the interim rule." The document therefore exceeds the 150-page limit by approximately 90 pages. The only lawful basis for an environmental impact statement of this length is a determination that the proposed action is of extraordinary complexity. Volume I contains no such determination. The phrases "extraordinary complexity," "page limit," and "Fiscal Responsibility Act" do not appear anywhere in the document, and 42 U.S.C. 4336a is cited nowhere in it. The Draft EIS asserts compliance with "other relevant laws and regulations" while exceeding the one quantitative constraint those laws place on the document itself, and without invoking the exception that would authorize the excess. This is not a matter of formatting. The page limit operates together with 7 CFR 1b.7(i), which directs that issues not of a substantive nature receive the briefest possible discussion. A ceiling of 150 pages applied to a rescission affecting approximately 44.7 million acres of National Forest System lands compels the agency to compress its effects analysis, and the extent of that compression depends directly on which ceiling the responsible official was working to. A document written to 150 pages must omit substantially more analysis than one written to 300. The public reading this Draft EIS cannot tell which constraint shaped it, because the document never says - and the difference is roughly 90 pages of effects analysis across 44.7 million acres. I request that the responsible official make and document the extraordinary-complexity determination required by 42 U.S.C. 4336a and 7 CFR 1b.7(a) as the predicate for a Final EIS exceeding 150 pages, or, if no such determination is made, that the Final EIS text comply with the 150-page limit. Under 7 CFR 1b.7(f)(3), the response to this comment should cite where in the Final EIS or the supporting proposal record that determination is accounted for. A rule that has survived twenty-five years, multiple administrations, and repeated judicial review deserves more deference than this. CommentID: RLC-20261006-9WBQV3

Let's keep the roads out of our National.parksmto keep them as pristine as they have been for hundreds of years so that it can be enjoyed for generations to come.