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Opposition to the Proposed Rescission of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (Docket FS-2025-0001) Dear Forest Service Officials, I am a resident of Driggs, ID and someone who frequently recreates on public land, mostly in the Jedediah Smith Wilderness and Caribou-Targhee National Forest. I am writing to strongly oppose the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s proposal to repeal the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. For a quarter of a century, this rule has successfully protected roughly 45 million acres of pristine national forest lands from commercial logging and new road construction. I am concerned about the impact that new roads will have on the ecosystems that so many species depends on. I think it is short-sighted and dangerous to rescind safeguards that threaten vital public resources: • Clean Water: Roadless national forests act as natural filtration systems, supplying clean drinking water to more than 60 million Americans across thousands of communities. • Wildlife Habitat: These untouched landscapes provide critical corridors and refuges for hundreds of at-risk and imperiled species. • Climate and Recreation Resilience: Intact forests sequester carbon effectively and support robust local outdoor recreation economies. Furthermore, the justification that removing protections improves wildfire management is flawed and contradicted by existing science and maintenance backlog realities. Instead of opening these wild public lands to extractive industries, the agency should focus its capacity on maintaining existing infrastructure and prioritizing community safety. Furthermore, the economic vitality of my small tourist community hinges on the protection of these pristine places. To jeapordize them for the interests of commercial logging could have negative impacts on the economy of my small town. I urge the Forest Service to withdraw this repeal and maintain full protections for our roadless national forests. Sincerely, Jennifer Piperno Driggs, ID 83422

I am writing to express my strong opposition to the proposal to fully or partially rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (Docket FS-2025-0001). As a resident of Driggs, Idaho and an advocate for our nation’s public lands, inventoried roadless areas matter deeply to me. I frequently visit and recreate Jedediah-Smith Wilderness, Caribou-Targhee National Forest and Grand Teton National where I hike, camp, climb and generally enjoy nature. Protecting these unfragmented landscapes is vital for several critical reasons: • Clean Water and Watersheds: Roadless areas safeguard essential headwaters and drinking water sources for downstream communities. • Wildlife Habitat: Roads fragment ecosystems and disrupt sensitive wildlife corridors, threatening biodiversity and endangered species. • Climate and Resilience: Intact forests act as natural carbon sinks and are more resilient to severe disturbances than fragmented, heavily managed timber lands. Shifting management decisions to local forest plans without a national safeguard risks opening millions of acres of pristine backcountry to industrial logging and road construction. I urge the Forest Service to select Alternative 1 (No Action) and maintain full, nationwide protections for all designated inventoried roadless areas. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this critical rule. Sincerely, Amanda Penn Driggs, Idaho

I am opposed to repeal of the roadless rule because I frequently recreate in National Forests that will be effected and recreation with the current amount of roads is completely sufficient to fulfill more than a lifetime of recreation in these places. It is worth noting that I often recreate in my overlanding vehicle, which is a 2021 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 with an AT Overland Atlas camping topper that is specifically designed for overloading, which is exploring backcountry roads (primarily in national forests) and camping. I often string together trips of 2-5 days overloading in various national forests. (I will provide my experience doing so at the end of this comment.) Due to the plethora of road options already available in National Forestland, which is enough to satisfy a lifetime of use, the addition or more roads is not a compelling rationale for this proposal. Specifically, these are the reasons I am opposed to repeal of the roadless rule. 1. Impact on nearby National Parks: National Forests play a critical role in the National Park System by often surrounding National Parks and thus serving as a buffer between pristine parkland and wilderness areas and human activity. This is the case for nearly all the major parks in the park system, including the Crown Jewels of the National Parks Service, which will be directly impacted by the recession of the roadless rule—Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier, Mount Ranier, Yosemite, North Cascades, Olympic, Everglades, Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, Redwood, Crater Lake, Shenandoah, Wrangell St. Elias, and Great Smokey Mountains. It is additionally the case for lesser known, but still important, national parks such as Theodore Roosevelt, Badlands, Guadalupe Mountains, Lassen, Pinnacles, Voyaguers, Mesa Verde, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, New River Gorge, as well as other national park units such as Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. The impact on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem looks particularly acute. The GYE, which includes Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, and several impacted National Forests — Custer-Gallatin NF, Shoshone NF, Bridger-Teton NF, Caribou-Targhee NF. Like the other National Parks mentioned above, Yellowstone greatly benefits by being completely surrounded by National Forest land. In fact, also like many of these other National Parks, it is impossible to enter Yellowstone without passing through a National Forest. Simply put — increasing roads and industrial motor vehicle traffic in national forestland will adversely impact the ability of people to get into the parks and will have an adverse effect on nearby wildlife and wilderness areas. 2. Impact on last remaining intact ecosystems Personally, when I camp and backpack, I do it in an intact ecosystem. Whether in/around Yellowstone, Tongass NF, Chugach NF, Superior NF / Boundary Waters, or other roadless wilderness areas, these areas are few and far between and provide solitude that is simply unavailable in forestland that permit roads. The personal benefits to me, my family, and my friends are significant. These areas provide time and space and silence for personal reflection and personal growth. Adding additional roads into roadless areas threatens this recreation. It is also worth noting that these areas are some of the last areas WITHOUT ROADS in the world, so the only areas that permit space for reflection away from modern society. These areas need to be preserved as is for this unique and limited experience. The estimated loss of $6.1M annually is a ridiculous underestimate that completely lacks support. The real total is far greater. 3. No definition of the “regulatory burden” that will allegedly be relieved. There is no real definition of what the exact “regulatory burden” that USFS claims is present. If this is just another way of stating that this current government just doesn’t like the rule, then that is not a persuasive reason to repeal it. Moreover, the rationale is full of vague, undefined justifications that do not hold up to scrutiny: - “Constrains responsible officials from exercising the timely, place-based discretion…” - “Evolving national priorities and changed conditions…” - “Removed important management tools for key areas…” - “Unique ecological, economic, and social needs of their communities…” These are vague, boilerplate terminologies for which no concrete examples are given in the rationale. Indeed, there are no examples given of any local forest service officials expressing desire for more “flexibility to address conservation and resource issues” by repealing the roadless rule. Absent any examples, the rationale for this repeal cannot stand. (To be continued - 1 of 2)

Continued: 4. Fire is a part of the ecosystem. To the extent that the rationale is reducing fire, the rationale is wrong, as other commenters have pointed out and as the rationale points out, that more roads lead to more fire activity. But also the entire proposal is misplaced — because the most effective way to address fires of increasing intensity is to address climate change. That is the real national priority that needs to be addressed that the government is completely failing to address. Roads in forests are not a recognized wild-land fire management policy, as other commenters have pointed out. *** Put simply, the repeal of the Roadless Rule is a step backwards in public lands management. It effectively takes public lands out of the hands of the people they are set aside for — the American public — and hands them to special interests who are willing to pay for them. This is not the mandate that the USFS has been given by Congress. The mandate is the manage these lands for multiple uses. Creating new roads in forests prioritizes only one use, timber harvesting, over all others. *** My experience in this comment is drawn from recreating at the following USFS properties: Little Missouri National Grassland; Buffalo Gap National Grassland; BigHorn National Forest; Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest; Hiawatha National Forest; Ottawa National Forest; Huron-Manistee National Forest; Superior National Forest; Chippewa National Forest; Shoshone National Forest; Custer-Gallatin National Forest; Flathead National Forest; Bridger-Teton National Forest; Caribou-Targhee National Forest; Gifford Pinchot National Forest; Olympic National Forest; Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest; Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest; Colville National Forest; Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest; Arapaho National Forest; White River National Forest; Black Hills National Forest; Thunder Basin National Grassland; Unit-Wasatch-Cache National Forest; Sierra National Forest; Stanislaus National Forest; Lincoln National Forest; and Shawnee National Forest. My major takeaway from all these experiences is that these Forests already have more roads than most people could explore in a lifetime. There is quite simply no practical or logistical need, from a recreational perspective, for more under the rationales that the USFS has proposed in this rule change.

To whom it may concern, For 25 years, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule has protected some of the most important public lands in the country from new road construction and development. At a time when Western communities are understandably concerned about fire, building more backcountry roads is the wrong solution. Roads bring vehicles, campfires, and people-powered wildfire ignition into places that currently see less traffic. Significant evidence exists that an increase in roads within forest lands is directly correlated to an increase in wildfire activity within those areas (Aplet et al., 2026) A known but often overlooked result of wildfire is a correlated increase in snow avalanche activity (Campbell et al., 2019). Mature forest acts as anchorage for snowpacks on steep hillsides in the western United States. Forests also have a slowing effect on avalanches that start above them and typically reduce the risk to people and structures at lower elevation. When this mature growth is eliminated through wildfire or cutting this anchoring effect is eliminated and new avalanche paths are created. This newly created avalanche terrain increases hazards to recreational users, infrastructure, and in some western communities urban areas. Urban infrastructure commonly exists below designated roadless areas. This increase in hazard may result in the loss of life or property. An example of this increased hazard is Blaine County, Idaho. Wildfire activity in this area has fundamentally altered the avalanche hazard affecting the wildland/urban interface and thus greatly increased avalanche threats to roads, people and property. (Miller et al., 2023). The United States Geological Survey (USGS) recognizes this threat and has gone as far as publishing it on USGS.gov (pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70249585). In addition to increased fire and avalanche hazard, road building and activities in roadless areas would lead to the degradation of water quality and wildlife habitat. This would lead to direct impacts to fish and wildlife, which in turn would affect outdoor recreation opportunities for the people of Idaho and across the US. The outdoor recreation economy in Idaho (where I live) is millions of dollars and relies on fresh clean water and intact wildlife habitat that supports robust game populations. Even though Idaho has its own roadless rule, much of the intact ecosystem starts in Idaho and continues in Wyoming. The national roadless rule provides protection for the whole ecosystem. Specific Example: The West Slope of the Tetons Roadless on the Caribou-Targhee NF offers unparalleled recreational opportunities. In summer and fall there is excellent access for multiple use recreation from hunting and angling, to hiking, horse- back riding, mountain biking and motorized activities. The terrain on the west side of Teton Pass, in the Palisades, including Mail Cabin Creek, Burbank Creek, and Mt. Oliver, offer up world class destinations for backcountry skiing. Terrain further south in the Palisades is accessed for snow-machining. Hundreds of Idahoans (and others from around the world) use this terrain on a daily basis in the winter to enjoy the beauty, solitude, fresh air, and fresh powder provided by these Roadless areas. Road building into these areas would have a direct negative impact on the quality of the experience in these areas. Road building, and the potential logging and associated increase in wildfires has the potential to increase the avalanche activity in these areas. Thick, old growth forest serves to help anchor snow to the slopes and prevent thick wind slabs from forming in many start zones. Rescinding these federal protections undermines decades of durable conservation. The proposal to allow commercial logging and road construction ignoring the existing multi-billion-dollar road maintenance backlog is fiscally irresponsible. The current 2001 framework successfully balances forest health with ecosystem preservation. I urge the Forest Service to keep the national Roadless Rule fully intact. Sincerely, Sarah Carpenter

I am opposed to the recision of the rule. I have personally had loved experiences in the landscapes this rule protects and hoping to provide the same experiences for my children and grandchildren. I have hiked and camped in the Custer Gallatin National Forest in Montana, and camped and driven through the Caribou-Targhee National Forest on the Idaho-Wyoming border. They are beautiful. These places should not build roads as it would ruin the serene scenery; once a road is built the experience is gone forever.

I oppose rescinding the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Having lived near US National Forest Service (USFS) lands for over 4 decades in Idaho and Wyoming (Bridger-Teton and Caribou-Targhee NF), I know how important roadless lands are for wildlife, clean water, recreation, scenery and human safety. As a pilot employed to conduct aerial wildlife surveys and research, I have seen the stark contrast of roadless lands, which benefit many kinds of mammals, and the much less valuable roaded and logged lands, which wildlife avoid. The claim that USFS needs more roads and more logging to mitigate wildfire risks and handle diseases is ludicrous for the following reasons: 1. Wildfires are most often started by humans, in the vicinity of roads. The proliferation of recreational vehicles and large pickup trucks means more vehicles and people in remote areas, where cell phone do not work. More fires should be expected with more roads on USFS lands. And more lives lost because of the scarcity of local law enforcement. Obviously, the agencies lack the resources to deal with this. 2. Local USFS planners and managers are not able to keep up with their current work loads, let alone a flood of new projects brought by eliminating the federal ban on logging and road-building within roughly 45 million acres of Inventoried Roadless Areas. This would be disastrous. USFS staff can retire to avoid the ugly situation, but those of us who live near, recreate or work in those previously roadless areas will bear the costs of dealing with poorly supervised projects, and the risks they pose. 3. Logged areas slowly recover in this region, and can result in dense monocultures of lodgepole pine, or shrubs and grass. These are also risky for wildfire. How much of a budget will USFS have to keep maintaining these areas to reduce future fire risks? What kind of schedule is needed to keep the lands in the ‘desired future conditions’? Do not gaslight the public by saying more roads save money and make us safer. The environmental analysis must closely examine these issues affecting the future with the best available science. 4. The environmental qualities of roadless areas are numerous, particularly as ever larger amounts of land in the US are degraded by a variety of factors. Qualities include secure habitat for rare and threatened species, migration zones, nesting habitat for forest-dependent birds, clean and undisturbed streams and wetlands, plant and forest successional stage diversity. Humans find solitude, natural sounds, and remarkable beauty of many kinds as they recreate in these areas, gaining physical health and peace of mind. These are ever more precious in the 21st century. 5. Time and again, we have seen ‘managed areas’ of forests burn, threatening homes and entire towns. USFS needs to disclose the scale of this phenomenon. The claim that more logging, thinning, and roads protect people needs to be scrutinized with the best available science. 6. USFS cannot maintain the current vast system of back-county roads. How will the addition of many more roads increase the burden, the problems, and the national debt? Please do not rescind the Roadless Rule. Drop it now to avoid wasting more money, or proceed to select the No Action Alternative.

I grew up minutes from a number of national forests including the Bridger-Teton National Forest, the Caribou-Targhee National Forest and more. I've also visited and enjoyed many national forests around the country. I strongly support Alternative 1, No Action and strongly oppose options 2 and 3. Our national forests are critical to so many aspects of life for us as well as all of the wildlife that we share the land with. Roadless areas help ensure that our drinking water remains fresh and those same areas are irreplaceable habitat for wild animals. Bird populations in the US continue to decline and the decisions of local, state, and federal governments have not done enough to protect so many at risk populations. Roadless areas are some of the last untouched areas where these birds can exist without undue human influence and we can't afford to eliminate that habitat around the country. Not only are roadless areas important to the animals that live there, they are also indispensable for everybody that lives near those areas. They are invaluable for their recreational access. They improve the lives and well being of countless people around the US who depend on them for all that recreation in them can bring whether that's near where you live or on a vacation to see some of the still wild areas of the US. In response to many of the claims that repealing the roadless rule will be good, I'd like to point out that science does not support that more roads in national forests will help in wild fire response. Most forest start within a quarter mile of a road and road access is rarely the limiting factor in our wildfire response. Furthermore, it seems that we already can't afford to maintain the roads in national forests that we do have and it seems illogical to therefore build more. Finally, I think that, out of all of the reasons to leave the roadless rule as is, the best argument is that as a whole the American people are overwhelmingly in favor of the roadless rule. Why then would we take our collective public lands and repeal this rule for the benefit of a few large corporations at the expense of everyone else? It does not make sense. We have seen this before and we know what will happen. Those corporations will take as much as they can and then disappear. They will not be held responsible for the destruction they cause and all of us will be worse off for it. We must take no action on the roadless rule and leave it as is for us and for all future generations.

There is no need to change the roadless rule. I live in Powell Wy and use the Shoshone, Bighorn, Custer and Caribou-Targhee National Forest to recreate on dozens of times every year. I use many modes of transportation. Instead of getting rid of or changing the Roadless Rule. How about we spend the money and maintain what we have. Please leave this alone!!!!

I hunt and fish all over the west but the two National Forest I spend the most time in is the Caribou-Targhee National Forest and the Salmon-Challis National Forest. National Forest inventoried roadless areas are so important to me because there is definitely less human disturbances and the wildlife can be how mother nature intended it to be and as well as an avid hunter I love roadless areas because it means less people and more wildlife. I support retaining durable backcountry conservation measures for while providing careful defined flexibility for forest restoration, community safe guarding, and fish and wildlife habitat improvement projects. The Forest service does not need to choose between healthy forest and conserving the intact backcountry landscapes on which hunters, anglers, wildlife, and communities depend on. Rather than removing the national rule, which would create inconsistent management across the country and potential conflict, I recommend the the Forest Service finalize a durable national Roadless Rule that safeguards intact backcountry habitat while providing flexibility for necessary community safeguards and restoration. Specifically the final rule should be set in place so that community safeguard for forest health, fuel reduction, and fish and wildlife habitat projects can move forward under clear conservation standards while limiting new road construction. The National Forest needs to retain strong national conservation measures for roadless areas and maintain durable conservation direction for intact backcountry lands including the 9.3 million acres of roadless area in the Tongass National Forest. The Forest Service should also take notes and draw from Idaho and Colorado's roadless rules and recognize these durable state based approaches as models that can inform a national rule to pair strong backcountry safeguards with carefully defined flexibility near communities and in areas where restoration is needed for wildlife and the habitat. With all this in place it will help prevent forest fires, have healthy forests and secure fish and wildlife habitat for hunters, anglers and all other recreationalist for generations to come. Thank you for your time.

Public Comment: Rescission of the 2001 Roadless Rule (Docket FS-2025-0001) I've lived in northwest Wyoming for 20 years, longer than anywhere else I've called home. When visitors ask what to do in Jackson, I tell them to get as far from the town square as possible. That pull toward solitude and wild ground isn't something anyone can promise you...it has to already exist, undeveloped. The wilderness access this administration's leadership enjoys is the kind money buys. Most Americans will never have that. What they can have is the last intact habitat strongholds that make this region a world-class wildlife refuge. Decommissioning roads in roadless areas is already illegal, and I take seriously the argument that rescission doesn't itself mandate new roads or logging...that's technically true. But "this approach prioritizes decision-making by local Forest Service officials informed by Tribes, State, and local communities" doesn't hold up against recent record. Authority under this rule sits with Forest Supervisors and Regional Foresters, federal appointees tied to the same partisan leadership issuing the rule, not county commissioners or the Wyoming legislature. This year, Caribou-Targhee National Forest approved a 694-acre, 28% boundary expansion for Grand Targhee Resort into habitat for the isolated Teton Range bighorn sheep herd and federally threatened whitebark pine. Wyoming Game and Fish (a non-partisan state agency) formally objected, calling it a violation of the forest plan and sensitive-species policy. Teton County Commission's preferred alternative had no expansion. The Forest Supervisor approved it anyway, just at reduced acreage. If that office overrides the state wildlife agency, two county Commissions, Grand Teton National Park, Teton Conservation District, and 1,200+ comments on one ski permit, "local control" won't hold the line on 44.7 million roadless acres either. I'd ask USDA to require that any decision overriding a state agency's science-based objection and the affected counties' stated position get elevated review and written public justification, not a Forest Supervisor's sign-off alone. The rule cites wildfire risk and insect/disease infestation as reasons for "active management." That's short-sighted. Fire is a natural cycle here, and bark beetle is minor compared to the damage from invasive annual grasses and other listed noxious species, spread largely by the very activities this rule expands: logging, grazing, and vehicle traffic. With the status quo strategy, treated acres often just regrow more weeds; untreated acres degrade forage for wildlife and livestock alike, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, while operators pay permit fees worth pennies on the dollar with no meaningful efficacy on their repair obligation. If active management is the justification, invasive species accountability needs to be a first-order priority, not an afterthought to fire-risk framing. The economics don't clear the bar either. USDA's own analysis projects $4.6–10.6 million a year in added timber revenue from this rescission. The Forest Service's total deferred maintenance backlog exceeded $8.6 billion in FY2023, and the roads portion alone has been estimated above $8 billion, since the agency can only fund maintenance on about 20% of its 370,000 miles of road annually. Even the high-end revenue estimate is roughly 0.12% of that backlog, and there's no guarantee it flows to road maintenance at all. We are being asked to accept risk to 44.7 million acres of the last roadless ground in the country for a rounding error against the agency's own maintenance debt. Separately, this rule doesn't exist in a vacuum: recent budget actions cut $1.39 billion from the Forest Service, including $303 million in state/tribal partnership funding, alongside repeated attempts to mandate federal land sales. I'd ask USDA to disclaim any connection between this rescission and future land disposal, so it isn't read as one piece of a larger pattern. "Local control" should mean control by the people who live with the consequences, not a shift from Washington to a recently planted Forest Supervisor who gets to retire or transfer out of the community they just sold down the river.

As a 41 year resident of Montana and the American West, I greatly value the Roadless Rule and the resources and wildlife it protects. I am 100% opposed to rilling back the Roadless Rule. It is clear that the vast majority of Americans who commented are in favor of retaining the Roadless Rule. This rule was not passed with no public input, as the Trump Administration falsely claimed, but was the subject of hundreds of meetings and a record-breaking 1.6 million comments, 95% of which favored protected existing national forest roadless areas. In the recent administrative review and comment period, 99% of comments favor keeping the Roadless Rule. This rue is one of the most popular US government initiatives of all time. The fact that the Department of Agriculture still wants to throw this rule out shows just how corrupt and greedy this administration is. The proposal to eliminate the Roadless Rule has not been given one public meeting, because the administration knows they will get hammered by the people who support the roadless rule. The justification for getting rid of the Roadless Rule is full of holes. Building roads to log in these areas will not eliminate forest fire risk but will in fact increase it. 85% of wildfires in the Northern Rockies start within 1/4 mile of roads. Why? Humans. Most fires are started by people - neglected campfires, discarded cigarettes, sparks from chain saws or trailer chains or ATV exhaust. Discarded charcoal briquettes. Arson. In 1988 the North Fork Fire burned over 400,000 acres in Yellowstone National Park. It was started by a discarded cigarette next to a road in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. There is every reason to leave Roadless Areas intact. It's like money in the bank - you don't pull it out and burn through it because you want something now. You save it for later. Roadless land is more rare and more valuable every day. Roadless areas provide sources of clean, fresh water. They hold intact groves of forest that catches and filters rainwater, slows the wind, cool the air and the ground, and provide oxygen and store carbon. All for free. Roadless areas maintain habitat for some of our most rare and fascinating animals - grizzly bear, wolves, wolverines, lynx, goshawks, mountain lions, and black bears. The best elk hunting is in roadless areas that are a little harder to access so the elk have places to hide. Roadless areas also provide important refuge and solace for people - those who need solitude, peace and quiet, space from the human horde. Our cities become noisier and noisier and more and more packed with traffic and bedlam. Roadless areas are available for free to those who are willing able to go a little more remote. Most roadless areas are open to a variety of recreation hiking, backpacking, horse back riding, mountain biking, ORV use. Rock climbing, backcountry skiing, mountain climbing and nature study. Bird watching, forest bathing, star gazing, quiet contemplation of the natural world. The idea that there is a bunch of valuable timber just waiting to be logged and sold is absurd. Roadless areas are still intact because the are rugged and remote and have sparse timber. The Tongass National Forest is Alaska is a different story, but the land there is steep and the forest fragile. It is our largest temperate rainforest in the US and holds old trees that have taken hundreds or thousands of years to grow. Logging it requires high-impact roadbuilding on thin soil overlain on hard bedrock. The Montana and the Northern Rockies, roadless areas are usually in rugged mountain terrain that would also require expensive, high-impact road building. These roads would degrade the land and would not be useful for long - logging roads often slip off the mountain and dump sediment into mountain streams, creating and unstable and dangerous slope that will not grow back. All for marginal timber of thin lodgepole pine or Subalpine fir that have very limited commercial value. The Forest Service already has a mukti billion dollar backlog of road maintenance - building more is insane. Who is going to want this marginal timber? Montana has only 5 major sawmills remaining. The timber industry has shrunken greatly due to shrinking demand, high operating costs (think fuel prices), market competition and lack of available labor (think ICE deporting immigrants). The housing market is way down for similar reasons, so where would the lumber go? I have personally visited many of Montana and Idaho's wild roadless areas and all are well worth protecting and would be degraded by logging and road building. The Gallatin Range and Hyalite Canyon, the Bridger Range, The Gravelley Range, the West Pioneers, Cowboy Heaven, the Swan Range and Jewel Basin, the Elkhorn Mountains, The Crazy Mountains, the Tobacco Root Mountains, the Boukder Mountains, the Snowcrest Range...these are real places that would suffer real, irreversible harm if the Roadless Rule is repealed. Keep It Roadless!

I am adding my voice of total opposition to the proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. As a former National Park Service Ranger and 50+ year resident of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in Jackson, Wyoming, I value and cherish park and public land conservation, recreation and stewardship. The proposal to rescind the stewardship of 45 million acres of currently conserved public land makes no sense economically: it is basically trading off the sustainable long term outdoor economy for short term gain that is not sustainable. We already have too many roads on public land that are deteriorating and in poor shape. I drive Bridger-Teton and Caribou-Targhee National Forest roads and many miles of them are sub-standard and poor quality. Why not take care of the roads we already have? Why are they not maintained in better condition? We are so fortunate to have so much of this country publicly owned and available for recreation, and oil/gas/timber extraction. But we absolutely need to preserve some lands in a roadless and pristine condition. We simply do not need more roads on our public lands. Please do not kill the Golden Goose. Bob Skaggs

To the U.S. Forest Service: I am writing to express my strong opposition to any efforts to rescind, weaken, or roll back the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. As an avid user and advocate for our nation's public lands, I rely heavily on the integrity and protection of our inventoried roadless areas. I frequently visit the Bridger-Teton Nation Forest, GrosVentre Wilderness area, the Caribou-Targhee National Forest and the Jedediah Smith Wilderness in Wyoming and Idaho. Our family hikes these wilderness areas on yearly vacations. Protecting these unfragmented landscapes is deeply personal to me because I hiking the trails exposes us to a world not known in human cities. I cherish the wild flowers and value the pristine wildlife habitats. Each sighting of moose, bears, elk, sandhill cranes etc is proof that wilderness has its value to human lives. I urge the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to abandon the proposed rescission and instead maintain full protections for all currently designated inventoried roadless areas. Thank you for the opportunity to provide public comment. Sincerely, Jayne Boyer 4316 Thetford Rd Durham, NC 27707