Every public comment on the proposed rescission of the Roadless Rule, sorted by what it talks about. Pick a topic, then narrow by position, by how hard the comment is for the agency to set aside, or by how substantive it is. Each comment is shown in full, as filed. How comments are classified and scored is explained in the Comment Analysis.
Opposes rescissionA1 strongSubstance 11/24Owed an answerSep 7, 2026FS-2025-0001-322765
PLACESTANDDOCGAPEVIDASKALTLAW
Dear Chief Schultz:
For an outdoor enthusiast, the specific quality of roadless country — its acoustic character, the absence of mechanical intrusion, the compounding effect of distance from a trailhead — is precisely what the 2001 Rule was designed to preserve, and what rescission would place in permanent jeopardy.
The unique character of roadless areas makes them a invaluable birthright for us and future generations of Americans. Finding a place without road noise or the sound of engines is increasingly difficult and we must protect the few that remain.
I journey into the wilderness and roadless areas specifically for the difficulty and sense of adventure they offer, far from the sanitized viewing points and car-dependent activities.
Rescission would steal the opportunity from me and others to enjoy the unique inheritance of America's national lands free from the impacts of noise and air pollution. Rescission would diminish the few vibrant watersheds we have remaining which support fishing, hunting, and drinking water
Regarding the Comanche Peak Adjacent Area in the Arapaho & Roosevelt NFs, Colorado:
“The expansion of road networks degrades the slope stability and further increases the susceptibility to landslides. Deforestation, infrastructure construction, and mining triggered about 16% of fatal landslides from 2004 to 2016. High overlap exists between landslide susceptibility and areas of endemism for mammals, birds, and amphibians, which means that forests protecting both biodiversity and landslide risks to human society are important conservation targets. — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022 (https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2113416118)”
Uncited Methodology for Historical Timber Harvest Baseline in IRAs
The Draft EIS's timber harvest baseline for inventoried roadless areas rests on an uncited data pull. The document states that "the best available information on activities that have been implemented within IRAs over the last decade comes from the Forest Service Activity Tracking System" and reports "an average of 500 acres per year of timber harvest and a total of 1.8 million acres of hazardous fuels reduction," but nowhere identifies the specific FACTS query, parameters, or extraction date used to generate these numbers. The phrase "best available information" itself concedes limitations without disclosing their scope, and a single ten-year average obscures whether harvest activity is increasing, decreasing, or concentrated in particular years or forests — information directly relevant to evaluating the current Rule's effect on management flexibility. Under Kern v. Bureau of Land Management, 284 F.3d 1062 (9th Cir. 2002), and APA 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), unsupported general statements do not satisfy the hard-look standard. I request the agency cite the specific FACTS query and extraction date and disaggregate the average by year.
Absence of Quantified Nationwide Cumulative Timber Harvest, Road Construction, Sedimentation, and Fragmentation Analysis
The Draft EIS justifies rescinding roadless protections across up to 58 million acres nationwide based on generalized narrative about "changing and localized conditions, such as increasing wildfire risk, the spread of insect and disease infestations, and the need for community protection in the wildland-urban interface," and elsewhere asserts that the 2001 Roadless Rule "has contributed to the lack of active management of the national forests." Nowhere does the DEIS convert this narrative into a quantified nationwide or regionally stratified projection of harvest volume, road-mile construction, sedimentation, or fragmentation, even though it performs comparable granular quantitative analysis for the Tongass National Forest alone. NEPA requires "a detailed statement… on… reasonably foreseeable environmental effects of the proposed agency action," 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C), and while Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, No. 23-975, 605 U.S. ___ (2025), narrows review of effects outside agency authority, it does not excuse omitting cumulative effects of actions the agency itself controls. Tiering under 42 U.S.C. § 4336e(11) requires specific commitments, not open-ended deferral. I request a quantified nationwide analysis or an explicit, enforceable tiered commitment to project-level review.
Twenty-five years of it working ought to count for something. Do not move forward with rescission.
Respectfully submitted,
CommentID: RLC-20260906-3PPQS4