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Comment letter- Roadless Rule Rescission- Oct 6, 2026 Allison Warner, 316 Dove Drive, Camano Island, WA 98282 Dear Secretary Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture, I am writing to express my opposition to the Roadless Rule Rescission as proposed by the US Forest Service. I am a semi-retired soil scientist and a wetland ecologist professionally and a birder and wild area enthusiast in my leisure time. From my more than 30-year career working in forests and wetlands, including 6 years at the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest, from which I am a retiree, I am aware of the economic value as well as the ecological value of large undisturbed tracks of land, forest management, and many national laws and management plans such as the NW Forest Plan. I am an author of watershed analyses for the Beckler River, and North Fork Skykomish watershed and several environmental assessments including one to propose reducing roads on the Skykomish Ranger District, for which I conducted public scoping and led the interdisciplinary team. I am opposed to the rescission of the roadless rule for many reasons, which all are linked to each other and to the ecological value of these areas for wildlife, for endangered species, for the communities that depend on the water resources provided by these areas, and for their economic services and value to the States and Nation as a whole. The analysis provided for this proposed rulemaking must fully address the economic impacts of removing the Roadless Rule, including potential increased fire risk, and costs to communities. Although the federal register states that it complies with the Federalism EO 13132 , the very purpose of this proposal is to remove restrictions on road-building within these designated areas, which would have consequences that impact States such as Washington State where I live. We already experience many days each summer of unacceptable air quality due to smoke from forest fires in the adjacent mountains. This has affected my family members who have asthma, and it affects our economy as people must stay indoors during bad air quality days. I also creates costs for WA State associated with managing fires and air quality. Please see attached my comments as you only have a 5000 word limit here.

USDA frames the rescission as a return of decisionmaking to local officials, but the officials it actually names are forest supervisors and regional foresters, both of whom are Forest Service employees. Essentially, authority moves from one level of a federal agency to another level of that same agency, and no state, county, or tribal government receives anything it did not already have. How this bears on federalism is through the certification itself, because USDA certifies that the rescission carries no federalism implications under E.O. 13132, and then, in the Civil Justice Reform section, states that conflicting state and local laws would be preempted upon publication. A rule that preempts state law is, almost by definition, a rule that affects the relationship between the federal government and the states, which is the precise thing E.O. 13132 directs agencies to analyze. A potential response here is that USDA holds broad authority over these lands no matter what the certification says, and that response is a fair one. The Property Clause gives Congress power over federal territory, and Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U.S. 529 (1976), reads that power expansively enough that a direct challenge to USDA's authority would likely fail. But authority and analysis are separate questions, and this comment concerns the second one. States retain the police power over health, safety, and welfare, and that power reaches drinking water systems and land use in the communities sitting downstream of these forests. Given that much of the burden lands on those communities, USDA should have run the federalism analysis rather than certifying its way past it.

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.