The Public Record · Docket FS-2025-0001

Read the comments.

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.

1 unique comments11 submissions

Position

Opposes rescission 100.0%

Answerability

A1 strong 0
A2 moderate 0
A3 weak 0
A0 none 1

Substance /24

Median 5middle half 5–5 · 1 scored

Topics raised

11 submissions in this letter's group · showing 1–11Clear all filters

Opposes rescissionA0 noneSubstance 5/24Sep 4, 2026FS-2025-0001-314092
PLACESTANDDOCGAPEVIDASKALTLAW
Campaign — One letter sent by 10 or more people, copied or lightly reworded. See the letter, its submissions and topics.One of 11 submissions in its group.
For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has conserved some of our nation's most intact fish and wildlife habitat, protected clean water and sustained outstanding backcountry hunting and fishing opportunities. And roadless does not mean unmanaged. The rule allows important management activities, including hazardous fuels reduction and habitat restoration, while keeping these lands open to hunting, fishing, grazing and recreation. Claims that wholesale rescission is necessary to address wildfire risk aren't true. The Roadless Rule already provides flexibility for fuels treatments and other management activities without requiring permanent new roads. And recent research found that wildfire ignitions were roughly four times more likely to occur near roads than in roadless forests, underscoring that more roads are not necessarily the answer to wildfire risk. The Roadless Rule also makes fiscal sense. The Forest Service already manages roughly 370,000 miles of roads and faces approximately $10.8 billion in deferred maintenance, with more than half attributable to roads alone. Adding new roads and long-term maintenance obligations won't solve that problem. I strongly support leaving the roadless rule as is and in place.
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Opposes rescissionA0 noneSubstance 5/24Sep 1, 2026FS-2025-0001-298976
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Campaign — One letter sent by 10 or more people, copied or lightly reworded. See the letter, its submissions and topics.One of 11 submissions in its group.
As a concerned US citizen, I am firmly support the Roadless Rule and find this proposal very concerning. For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has conserved some of our nation's most intact fish and wildlife habitat, protected clean water and sustained outstanding backcountry hunting and fishing opportunities. And roadless does not mean unmanaged. The rule allows important management activities, including hazardous fuels reduction and habitat restoration, while keeping these lands open to hunting, fishing, grazing and recreation. Claims that wholesale rescission is necessary to address wildfire risk aren’t true. The Roadless Rule already provides flexibility for fuels treatments and other management activities without requiring permanent new roads. And recent research found that wildfire ignitions were roughly four times more likely to occur near roads than in roadless forests, underscoring that more roads are not necessarily the answer to wildfire risk. The Roadless Rule also makes fiscal sense. The Forest Service already manages roughly 370,000 miles of roads and faces approximately $10.8 billion in deferred maintenance, with more than half attributable to roads alone. Adding new roads and long-term maintenance obligations won't solve that problem. -Nathan Trimpey
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Opposes rescissionA0 noneSubstance 5/24Sep 1, 2026FS-2025-0001-299862
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Campaign — One letter sent by 10 or more people, copied or lightly reworded. See the letter, its submissions and topics.One of 11 submissions in its group.
To whom it may concern: As a taxpayer I am in opposition to fully rescind the 2001 roadless rule act. I believe it would remove longstanding protections from more than 44 million acres of national forest backcountry across 37 states. For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has conserved some of our nation's most intact fish and wildlife habitat, protected clean water and sustained outstanding backcountry hunting and fishing opportunities. And roadless does not mean unmanaged. The rule allows important management activities, including hazardous fuels reduction and habitat restoration, while keeping these lands open to hunting, fishing, grazing and recreation. Claims that wholesale rescission is necessary to address wildfire risk aren't true. The Roadless Rule already provides flexibility for fuels treatments and other management activities without requiring permanent new roads. And recent research found that wildfire ignitions were roughly four times more likely to occur near roads than in roadless forests, underscoring that more roads are not necessarily the answer to wildfire risk. The Roadless Rule also makes fiscal sense. The Forest Service already manages roughly 370,000 miles of roads and faces approximately $10.8 billion in deferred maintenance, with more than half attributable to roads alone. Adding new roads and long-term maintenance obligations won't solve that problem. I support active, science-based forest management to address wildfire, forest health and responsible access. But wholesale elimination of the Roadless Rule is not the answer - it would remove longstanding protections from more than 44 million acres of national forest backcountry across 37 states. Sincerely, Nathan Ternes
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Opposes rescissionA0 noneSubstance 5/24Aug 28, 2026FS-2025-0001-278832
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Campaign — One letter sent by 10 or more people, copied or lightly reworded. See the letter, its submissions and topics.One of 11 submissions in its group.
Hell No! Do not repeal the Roadless Rule! For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has conserved some of our nation's most intact fish and wildlife habitat, protected clean water and sustained outstanding backcountry hunting and fishing opportunities. And roadless does not mean unmanaged. The rule allows important management activities, including hazardous fuels reduction and habitat restoration, while keeping these lands open to hunting, fishing, grazing and recreation. Our current Road system is in need of repairs over 1000's of mile and this would simply make those problems worse, without a benefit, and with unbelievable and irreversible resources damage. DO NOT REPEAL THE ROADLESS RULE.IT IS PROTECTING OUR MOST PRECIOUS LANDS.
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Opposes rescissionA0 noneSubstance 5/24Aug 28, 2026FS-2025-0001-282292
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Campaign — One letter sent by 10 or more people, copied or lightly reworded. See the letter, its submissions and topics.One of 11 submissions in its group.
I strongly urge the USDA keep the current regulations in place regarding roads and our public lands. For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has conserved some of our nation's most intact fish and wildlife habitat, protected clean water and sustained outstanding backcountry hunting and fishing opportunities. And roadless does not mean unmanaged. The rule allows important management activities, including hazardous fuels reduction and habitat restoration, while keeping these lands open to hunting, fishing, grazing and recreation. The current system works and provides the best benefit for all stakeholders! Paul Miller Aldie, VA
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Opposes rescissionA0 noneSubstance 5/24Aug 21, 2026FS-2025-0001-228235
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Campaign — One letter sent by 10 or more people, copied or lightly reworded. See the letter, its submissions and topics.One of 11 submissions in its group.
Roadless areas should continue and were created for good reasons. For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has conserved some of our nation's most intact fish and wildlife habitat, protected clean water and sustained outstanding backcountry hunting and fishing opportunities. And roadless does not mean unmanaged. The rule allows important management activities, including hazardous fuels reduction and habitat restoration, while keeping these lands open to hunting, fishing, grazing and recreation. Claims that wholesale rescission is necessary to address wildfire risk aren't true. The Roadless Rule already provides flexibility for fuels treatments and other management activities without requiring permanent new roads. And recent research found that wildfire ignitions were roughly four times more likely to occur near roads than in roadless forests, underscoring that more roads are not necessarily the answer to wildfire risk. Locally in Siskiyou County California the "fuel reduction" projects that are nothing except logging opportunities and will increase flammability. The irreplaceable big trees that shade are logged leaving wide dry hot sunny patches that will quickly fill in with brush. The Roadless Rule also makes fiscal sense. The Forest Service already manages roughly 370,000 miles of roads and faces approximately $10.8 billion in deferred maintenance, with more than half attributable to roads alone. Adding new roads and long-term maintenance obligations won't solve that problem. Thank you, United States Citizen
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Opposes rescissionA0 noneSubstance 5/24Aug 21, 2026FS-2025-0001-238766
PLACESTANDDOCGAPEVIDASKALTLAW
Campaign — One letter sent by 10 or more people, copied or lightly reworded. See the letter, its submissions and topics.One of 11 submissions in its group.
For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has conserved some of our nation's most intact fish and wildlife habitat, protected clean water and sustained outstanding backcountry hunting and fishing opportunities. And roadless does not mean unmanaged. The rule allows important management activities, including hazardous fuels reduction and habitat restoration, while keeping these lands open to hunting, fishing, grazing and recreation. Claims that wholesale rescission is necessary to address wildfire risk aren't true. The Roadless Rule already provides flexibility for fuels treatments and other management activities without requiring permanent new roads. And recent research found that wildfire ignitions were roughly four times more likely to occur near roads than in roadless forests, underscoring that more roads are not necessarily the answer to wildfire risk. The Roadless Rule also makes fiscal sense. The Forest Service already manages roughly 370,000 miles of roads and faces approximately $10.8 billion in deferred maintenance, with more than half attributable to roads alone. Adding new roads and long-term maintenance obligations won't solve that problem. Backcountry Hunters and Anglers supports active, science-based forest management to address wildfire, forest health and responsible access. But wholesale elimination of the Roadless Rule is not the answer - it would remove longstanding protections from more than 44 million acres of national forest backcountry across 37 states. Lets be clear, the recession of this rule is not about fighting wildfires or better management of our forests, its about opening these lands to logging, mining, and other natural resource harvesting, for corporate interests and profits. I strongly oppose the recession of the Roadless Rule. HANDS OFF PUBLIC LANDS.
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Opposes rescissionA0 noneSubstance 5/24Aug 20, 2026FS-2025-0001-224035
PLACESTANDDOCGAPEVIDASKALTLAW
Campaign — One letter sent by 10 or more people, copied or lightly reworded. See the letter, its submissions and topics.This comment stands for all 11 submissions in its group.
For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has conserved some of our nation's most intact fish and wildlife habitat, protected clean water and sustained outstanding backcountry hunting and fishing opportunities. And roadless does not mean unmanaged. The rule allows important management activities, including hazardous fuels reduction and habitat restoration, while keeping these lands open to hunting, fishing, grazing and recreation. Claims that wholesale rescission is necessary to address wildfire risk aren't true. The Roadless Rule already provides flexibility for fuels treatments and other management activities without requiring permanent new roads. And recent research found that wildfire ignitions were roughly four times more likely to occur near roads than in roadless forests, underscoring that more roads are not necessarily the answer to wildfire risk. The Roadless Rule also makes fiscal sense. The Forest Service already manages roughly 370,000 miles of roads and faces approximately $10.8 billion in deferred maintenance, with more than half attributable to roads alone. Adding new roads and long-term maintenance obligations won't solve that problem. Please keep the Roadless Rule intact.
Full analysis of this comment →
Opposes rescissionA0 noneSubstance 5/24Aug 20, 2026FS-2025-0001-224311
PLACESTANDDOCGAPEVIDASKALTLAW
Campaign — One letter sent by 10 or more people, copied or lightly reworded. See the letter, its submissions and topics.One of 11 submissions in its group.
For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has conserved some of our nation's most intact fish and wildlife habitat, protected clean water and sustained outstanding backcountry hunting and fishing opportunities. And roadless does not mean unmanaged. The rule allows important management activities, including hazardous fuels reduction and habitat restoration, while keeping these lands open to hunting, fishing, grazing and recreation. Claims that wholesale rescission is necessary to address wildfire risk aren't true. The Roadless Rule already provides flexibility for fuels treatments and other management activities without requiring permanent new roads. And recent research found that wildfire ignitions were roughly four times more likely to occur near roads than in roadless forests, underscoring that more roads are not necessarily the answer to wildfire risk. The Roadless Rule also makes fiscal sense. The Forest Service already manages roughly 370,000 miles of roads and faces approximately $10.8 billion in deferred maintenance, with more than half attributable to roads alone. Adding new roads and long-term maintenance obligations won't solve that problem. As an avid hunter, fisherman, conservationist, and back country explorer I regularly use backcountry lands which are currently protected by the roadless rule. Our roadless areas need to remain wild, productive and accessible for generations to come. As a result, I strongly support the No Action Alternative.
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Opposes rescissionA0 noneSubstance 5/24Aug 20, 2026FS-2025-0001-224346
PLACESTANDDOCGAPEVIDASKALTLAW
Campaign — One letter sent by 10 or more people, copied or lightly reworded. See the letter, its submissions and topics.One of 11 submissions in its group.
For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has conserved some of our nation's most intact fish and wildlife habitat, protected clean water and sustained outstanding backcountry hunting and fishing opportunities. And roadless does not mean unmanaged. The rule allows important management activities, including hazardous fuels reduction and habitat restoration, while keeping these lands open to hunting, fishing, grazing and recreation. Claims that wholesale rescission is necessary to address wildfire risk aren't true. The Roadless Rule already provides flexibility for fuels treatments and other management activities without requiring permanent new roads. And recent research (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s42408-026-00450-2) found that wildfire ignitions were roughly four times more likely to occur near roads than in roadless forests, underscoring that more roads are not necessarily the answer to wildfire risk. The Roadless Rule also makes fiscal sense. The Forest Service already manages roughly 370,000 miles of roads and faces approximately $10.8 billion in deferred maintenance, with more than half attributable to roads alone. Adding new roads and long-term maintenance obligations won't solve that problem. When I hunt and fish, I actively seek out areas without roads, even traveling further than I would otherwise just because an area is roadless. This change will make doing so harder than it already is for myself and countless other Americans who do the same. To many, the rescission of this rule feels like a blatant attempt to simply extract more resources. All for a short term benefit at the expense of present and future generations. Science and public sentiment both oppose this action, please act accordingly.
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Opposes rescissionA0 noneSubstance 5/24Aug 20, 2026FS-2025-0001-225207
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Campaign — One letter sent by 10 or more people, copied or lightly reworded. See the letter, its submissions and topics.One of 11 submissions in its group.
I urge you to protect the Roadless Rule and conserve our country's most prized wild areas. For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has conserved some of our nation's most intact fish and wildlife habitat, protected clean water and sustained outstanding backcountry hunting and fishing opportunities. And roadless does not mean unmanaged. The rule allows important management activities, including hazardous fuels reduction and habitat restoration, while keeping these lands open to hunting, fishing, grazing and recreation. We do not need more roads in our national forests. We need vast, undeveloped wilderness. The Forest Service already manages roughly 370,000 miles of roads and faces approximately $10.8 billion in deferred maintenance, with more than half attributable to roads alone. Adding new roads and long-term maintenance obligations won't solve that problem. These national forest lands are the treasures of all Americans. Please defend the Roadless Rule. Sincerely, Tara Kramer
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Please cite us. This analysis is the intellectual property of Roadless.org and Nicholas Holshouser. You are welcome to reproduce it — every reproduction must include this citation:

Roadless.org and Nicholas Holshouser, “2001 Roadless Rule Revision — Substantive Analysis,” https://roadless.org.

How it works. A large language model (an open-weight Qwen3.8 model) reads each substantive comment and copies, word for word, the passages that carry its analytical gap, evidence, request, alternative and connection to the place; it returns no scores. Code grades those passages 0–3 on eight dimensions — evidence, legal grounding, engagement with the environmental analysis, analytical gaps, alternatives, specific requests, position, and local knowledge — with legal grounding taken from a citation scan, not the model. For the strongest tenth on each side, the copied passages are checked against the comment and shown as exhibits. A comment counts as “substantive” when it clears a floor filter — it must show at least one substantive signal (a named entity, a specific citation, a stated analytical deficiency, or first-person testimony), which screens out one-line and purely conclusory submissions before any model scoring.

The full method. Every step, why it is done that way, its known limits and a glossary: Methodologies →

The data. The full canonical dataset — every comment on Docket FS-2025-0001 — is available from Regulations.gov's bulk download, the canonical source: https://www.regulations.gov/bulkdownload. Download the CSV directly (Regulations.gov keeps this link working until October 18, 2026): https://bulk-downloads.regulations.gov/mv4-z8fw-q5jx.csv.

Roadless.org — analysis of the public comment docket.
Media inquiries welcome — nicholas@wanderingnature.com.