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Re: Docket No. FS-2025-0001, RIN 0596–AD66: Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation, Proposed Rule, 91 Fed. Reg. 53827 (Aug. 20, 2026) I oppose the proposed rescission of the 2001 Roadless Rule (removal of 36 C.F.R. part 294, subpart B). As a frequent visitor to the roadless areas of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in Virginia, and a very recent visitor to the roadless areas of White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, I urge the Department to withdraw the proposed rule, for these reasons: 1. The proposal is arbitrary and capricious under the APA (5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A)). A rescission requires reasoned analysis, including why prior findings no longer hold and how reliance interests were weighed (Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass'n v. State Farm, 463 U.S. 29 (1983); DHS v. Regents, 591 U.S. 1 (2020); Organized Village of Kake v. USDA, 795 F.3d 956 (9th Cir. 2015) (en banc)). The Department invites comment on reliance interests (91 Fed. Reg. at 53830). For 25 years, communities, water providers, outfitters, and state wildlife agencies have relied on these protections. The stated goal of reducing "regulatory burden" is also unexplained: the Department concedes the rule imposes no requirements on small entities (id. at 53831), because it constrains only the agency. 2. The wildfire rationale does not support nationwide rescission. The Department grounds its rationale in changed conditions "especially in the Western United States" (id. at 53828), and concedes that greater access can increase human-caused ignitions (id. at 53829). The Rule already allows small-diameter cutting to reduce uncharacteristic wildfire risk (36 C.F.R. § 294.13(b)(1)(ii)) and roads for imminent fire threats (§ 294.12(b)(1)). The Department does not explain why Eastern forests such as the George Washington and Jefferson must lose protection. 3. The proposal is inconsistent with the forests' statutory purposes and the agency's own fiscal constraints. The Organic Act establishes national forests in part to secure "favorable conditions of water flows" (16 U.S.C. § 475). The Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act requires due consideration of watershed, wildlife, and recreation values (16 U.S.C. §§ 528–529). The Department identifies 18.2 million acres where plans would allow new permanent roads, while acknowledging a $6.9 billion deferred maintenance backlog for roads and bridges (91 Fed. Reg. at 53829). 4. The NEPA analysis is incomplete (42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C)). The Department acknowledges that later plan amendments "could increase the area where timber harvest and road construction would be allowed," yet treats those effects as beyond scope (id. at 53830). These are reasonably foreseeable effects of removing the national protections. The Department also failed to analyze a region-specific alternative, such as retaining protections in Eastern forests. USDA's 2005 repeal was invalidated for NEPA and ESA failures (California ex rel. Lockyer v. USDA, 575 F.3d 999 (9th Cir. 2009)), a history the Department itself recites (91 Fed. Reg. at 53827). 5. ESA consultation is required before any final rule (16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2)). The proposed rule makes no ESA determination among its regulatory certifications. It says only that future local decisions will remain subject to the ESA (id. at 53828). Removing nationwide protections across tens of millions of acres "may affect" listed species, including the Indiana bat and northern long-eared bat, whose ranges include the George Washington and Jefferson. Consultation is required on the rescission itself. The Department found tribal consultation warranted even where OMB guidance did not require it (id. at 53831). It should do the same under the ESA. 6. The Regulatory Flexibility Act certification is unsupported (5 U.S.C. § 605(b)). The Department acknowledges that outfitters, guides, and tour operators use these lands and estimates $6.1 million in annual recreation losses (91 Fed. Reg. at 53829–30). Yet it certifies no significant impact on small entities (id. at 53831). It is unconscionable for the department to ignore 25 years of success under the 2001 Roadless Rule and risk exacerbated wildfires and degraded water quality by rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule. I urge the Department to retain the 2001 Roadless Rule and withdraw the proposed rescission. Thank you, Alec Shobe

I oppose the proposed rescission. My objections concern specific deficiencies in the proposed rule, the Draft EIS, and the cost-benefit analysis. I request a response to each in the Final EIS. 1. The Regulatory Flexibility Act certification is inconsistent with the Department's own analysis. USDA certifies that the rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities (91 FR 53831). In the same document it estimates $6.1 million in annual lost economic benefit to recreationists, states that recreation and tourism could experience trade-offs, and acknowledges total additional impacts could exceed $100 million (91 FR 53830). Outfitters, guides, lodges, and rural recreation businesses are overwhelmingly small entities under 5 U.S.C. 601(6). A certification under 5 U.S.C. 605(b) cannot rest on the absence of compliance obligations when the agency has separately quantified losses concentrated in a small-entity sector. Loss of the resource a business depends on is an economic impact. I request that the certification be withdrawn and an Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis prepared under 5 U.S.C. 603. 2. The federalism determination contradicts the preemption statement in the same document. USDA finds no federalism implications under E.O. 13132 (91 FR 53831), then states under Civil Justice Reform that upon publication all State and local laws and regulations that conflict with the proposed rule or that impede its full implementation would be preempted (91 FR 53832). A rule that preempts conflicting state and local law by its own terms has substantial direct effects on the States. This inconsistency should be resolved on the record before a final rule issues. 3. The wildfire rationale is not supported by the Department's own figures. Only 4.8 million acres, 16 percent of forested inventoried roadless area, are estimated to be operable for timber harvest, and USDA concedes a $6.9 billion deferred road maintenance backlog constrains activity (91 FR 53829). The existing rule already permits cutting generally small diameter timber to maintain or restore ecosystem composition and structure, expressly including reducing the risk of uncharacteristic wildfire effects, under 36 CFR 294.13(b)(1). Small-diameter material is precisely what hazardous-fuels reduction targets, and prescribed fire is not restricted at all. If the binding constraints are funding, workforce, and operability, rescission does not address the stated need. I request that the Final EIS disclose how many proposed hazardous-fuels projects in inventoried roadless areas since 2001 were denied, withdrawn, or materially modified because of 36 CFR 294.13, as distinct from budget or capacity limits. The preamble also concedes that greater access can increase human-caused ignition potential (91 FR 53829) without quantifying it or netting it against the claimed benefit. 4. Reliance interests are not analyzed. The preamble invites comment on reliance interests (91 FR 53830), and an agency reversing a longstanding policy must address the serious reliance the prior policy engendered. FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. 502, 515 (2009); DHS v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal., 591 U.S. 1, 30 (2020). The Final EIS must address municipal and rural water systems whose source-water planning assumes undeveloped headwaters; recreation businesses that invested in unroaded settings; state wildlife agencies whose habitat and migration-corridor investments assumed a roadless baseline; Tribal governments; and Endangered Species Act consultations that treated roadless conditions as part of the environmental baseline. Stating that near-term effects are bounded by existing plan direction is a prediction about timing, not an analysis of reliance. 5. The range of alternatives appears inadequate under NEPA. Tribes requested a strengthened roadless alternative and a Traditional Homelands Conservation Rule during scoping (91 FR 53832). If these were not analyzed in detail, reasonable alternatives raised in scoping have been excluded. Intermediate options that would serve the stated purpose with less environmental effect also warrant detailed analysis, including broadening the existing 294.13(b) exception near the wildland-urban interface, or a state-petition pathway modeled on the Idaho and Colorado subparts. 6. Thirty days is not a meaningful opportunity to comment on a multi-volume Draft EIS, cost-benefit analysis, and Tribal impact statement covering 44.7 million acres. I request an extension to at least 90 days. I urge selection of the No Action alternative.