Read the comments.

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.

The Roadless Rule was enacted for a reason; because lack of regulation allows for certain entities to act against the intentions of why these land were protected in the first place: to allow access for the American people, protect endangered species and their habitat, and also to allow timber harvesting and development when it does not negatively affect the conservation goals. Having worked in Lincoln National Forest, I had the opportunity to drive many back roads and see the wild beauty of the landscape and the wildlife that calls it home. Removing regulations and allowing the possible destruction of these areas would be a travesty. It is extremely important to keep the Roadless Rule. Please keep it in effect for the benefit of future generations. Thank you, Brian

I am writing to submit a public comment on the intent to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule. I care deeply about our national forests because I am a wildlife conservationist whose career began with studying sensitive wildlife in Lincoln National Forest in south-central New Mexico. I have recreated at National Forests throughout my entire life, and I want my children to have the same opportunities in their lifetimes, and their children's lifetimes. I strongly oppose rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule because the science is clear: road building fragments habitat, disrupting wildlife and watersheds; increases pollution; facilitates damaging extractive industries; and worsens the spread of invasive species. Roadless areas protect habitat for 1,600 at-risk species, safeguard clean drinking water for 60 million Americans, and preserve old-growth forests hundreds of years old. Nearly 85% of wildfires are human-caused, and most ignite within a few hundred feet of roads. Wildfires are four times more likely to start in roaded areas than in unroaded tracts. Given that the FY26 budget eliminates funding for wildfire suppression and management, USDA cannot claim this rule change is genuinely about mitigating fire risks. For all these reasons, I strongly oppose rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule. I ask that before moving forward, the agency: -Conduct a thorough environmental analysis of roadless areas to assess the impacts of additional road building; -Guarantee that no watersheds will be negatively affected by rescission; -Develop and share a detailed plan for addressing its existing backlog in road maintenance and repairs; -And commit to moving forward with transparency, including a full account of how public comments were considered and concerns addressed. Please protect America’s remaining roadless areas for current and future generations. Marissa Ardovino

Hello to whom this may concern … which is all of Humanity. Just today an old growth cottonwood tree in Arizona was cut down and destroyed to build a security border wall. This is an act of terror and destruction to our property known as Earth. A wall prohibits migratory paths of animals not just humans and that affects ecosystems in turn affecting us all. Rescinding the “roadless rule” will contribute to even more loss of ecosystems, animal life and precious resources that we just can’t get back. Please for the sake of the future for our children do not allow this to happen!! This is not right !! We need to be preserving our lands, water and open wild spaces not allowing more movement by human activity. There are tons of studies as to why rescinding the roadless rule is wrong in every aspect except for monetarily which in the long run the money won’t matter as much as having our Earth here. I live next door to the Lincoln National Forest and already we have seen massive desecrating by the hands of humans. We need to be conserving these lands not opening them up. This is an awful move that ultimately harms us all. And over 300,000 people have told you this and millions more haven’t written commentary but they agree. Leave our public lands alone and wild !!

I am a mountain biker and hiker who utilizes roadless areas frequently, and I am also an engineer and economist who views the natural environment as both a functional system and as a financial resource. I urge you to preserve existing roadless areas by keeping the roadless rules in place. I am intimately familiar with the roadless areas along the western edge of the Lincoln National Forest, roughly between Alamogordo and Cloudcroft New Mexico. I have experienced several times when a road is built through a formerly wild region. Road construction destroys the natural essence of natural areas and can never be undone. In addition to the initial destruction, the existence of a road permanently alters the character of an area, moving it from a pristine wilderness towards an industrial wasteland. Road construction in wild areas destroys a wide swath of our natural environment, both in horizontal and vertical dimensions. The most obvious impact is horizontally, as a path significantly wider than the road is blazed through whatever existed before. But roads built in hilly or mountainous require much heavier bulldozing to avoid side-slopes and excessive grades. Even in flat areas, construction includes scraping down below the ground surface and rebuilding to create a solid foundation for the road. Once the road is created, it changes its surroundings forever. It creates a barrier to wildlife, carving natural environments into smaller portions. This shrinkage of wild areas decreases the biodiversity as the shrinking habitats provide fewer places for living and breeding, especially for larger species. The impact on smaller species is even more severe, as the road surface itself presents a large barrier to movement. From a financial perspective, preservation of the existing natural resources is crucial to local economies, especially the tourism that is often the lifeblood of rural counties near these roadless areas. Promoting mining and logging at the expense of natural areas that draw enormous amounts of on-going tourism is short-sighted. These extractive industries may provide short-term jobs but unfortunately damage the long-term economic potential for recreation and tourism. One argument used by proponents of rescinding the roadless rule is that new roads will enable forest management and access for firefighters. However, the best available fire ecology research shows that fires start far more often near roads, and fire-fighting agencies explicitly warn that adding roads will increase wildfire frequency. Posing the elimination of the roadless rule as a tool for promoting economic development is a false representation. I fervently support keeping the roadless rule, to preserve the natural environment and the economic benefits that it promotes. Philip B. Simpson

The Upper Hondo Soil & Water Conservation District supports the rescission of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and offers the following comments: •Since 2001, the Roadless Rule—through centralized management and an extensive history of litigation—has proven ineffective and costly. •The result has been widespread mismanagement and the loss of millions of acres of overgrown forests to wildfire, disease, and drought. •These losses represent billions of dollars in natural resources, including timber that could have been used to build affordable housing to replace homes lost to wildfires and to address the severe housing shortages frequently highlighted in media coverage of homelessness in major urban areas. Upper Hondo Soil & Water Conservation District supports rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule because doing so decentralizes road management and places responsibility for creating, decommissioning, and maintaining roads with individual National Forest Supervisors. •Each National Forest is unique, and local supervisors are far better positioned to understand the environmental conditions and management needs of their respective forests than staff located in Washington, D.C., thousands of miles removed from on the ground realities. •Local decision making regarding road creation, maintenance, or decommissioning must consider multi use objectives such as recreation, grazing, forest thinning for fire mitigation, and overall forest health. •Roads that were decommissioned under the Rule rarely received the funding necessary to address erosion issues either before or after decommissioning. Forest Supervisors should work directly with local Soil and Water Conservation Districts to resolve these problems. •Each National Forest’s Land Management Plan should address road system needs based on local conditions and priorities. •Roads identified as Potential Operational Delineation (POD) boundaries must be thinned and upgraded to standards that ensure safe ingress and egress during wildfire events. •Individual National Forests must be adequately resourced—with both funding and personnel—to maintain existing roads and prevent the creation of illegal user built roads and illegal dumping on Forest Service lands. •Individual National Forests should provide clear, detailed information in their Land Management Plans describing how they will manage the road system. Additionally, taking more than seven years to revise a Land Management Plan is unacceptable; for example, the revision of the 1986 Lincoln National Forest Plan, ongoing since 2019, has taken far too long with no clear end in sight.

The roadless rule is one of the most important parts of preserving our public lands. Without roads, development and human activity cannot destroy our forests and critical nature preserves. Some of the most beautiful land I have ever been on, in the Lincoln National Forest would be destroyed if roads were allowed to be built though it. In order to preserve these lands for not only ourselves, but our children and their children. The roadless rule must be persevered in its current state.

As a Lincoln National Forest Grazing allotment owner, I support the rescission of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and offers the following comments: •Since 2001, I have witnessed the Roadless Rule—through centralized management and an extensive history of litigation—prove ineffective and costly. The rule never produced the expected results. •The results from widespread mismanagement as resulted in the loss of millions of acres of overgrown forests to wildfire, disease, and drought. •These losses represent billions of dollars in natural resources, including timber that could have been used to build affordable housing to replace homes lost to wildfires and to address the severe housing shortages frequently highlighted in media coverage of homelessness in major urban areas. I support rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule because it will decentralize road management and place responsibility for creating, decommissioning, and maintaining roads with individual National Forest Supervisors. •Each National Forest is unique, and local supervisors are far better positioned to understand the environmental conditions and management needs of their respective forests than staff located in Washington, D.C., thousands of miles removed from on the ground realities. •Local decision making regarding road creation, maintenance, or decommissioning must consider multi use objectives such as recreation, grazing, forest thinning for fire mitigation, and overall forest health. I want to point out that having more trees does not translate into having a healthy forest, especially during droughts in the southwest. •Roads that were decommissioned under the Rule rarely received the funding necessary to address erosion issues either before or after decommissioning. Forest Supervisors should work directly with local Soil and Water Conservation Districts to resolve these problems. •Each National Forest’s Land Management Plan should address road system needs based on local conditions and priorities. •Roads identified as Potential Operational Delineation (POD) boundaries must be thinned and upgraded to standards that ensure safe ingress and egress during wildfire events. •Individual National Forests must be adequately resourced—with both funding and personnel—to maintain existing roads and prevent the creation of illegal user built roads and illegal dumping on Forest Service lands. •Individual National Forests should provide clear, detailed information in their Land Management Plans describing how they will manage the road system. Additionally, taking more than seven years to revise a Land Management Plan is unacceptable; for example, the revision of the 1986 Lincoln National Forest Plan, ongoing since 2019, has taken far too long with no clear end in sight.

I am a citizen of New Mexico and I am writing to strongly oppose rescission of the Roadless Rule. The Roadless Rule is twenty-five years old and was established after 600 public meetings and 1.6 million comments by the public. The establishment of the Roadless Rule followed one of the broadest public engagement efforts ever by the US Forest Service, and that showed once and for all that there is outstanding positive support for protecting roadless forests. In New Mexico alone, there are 1.6 million acres of Inventoried Roadless Areas. It is important to me personally to keep New Mexico forest areas free of roads, logging and extractive industries. First of all, my family is fed by the venison, duck, elk and fish that my brother, a licensed hunter and fisherman, hunts and catches on roadless areas including in the Pecos Wilderness, the Lincoln National Forest and the Carson National Forest. Secondly, although I live in Albuquerque which is a metropolitan area of about a million people, for my mental health, I can quickly escape the city and hike or snowshoe in the nearby Cibola National Forest. I also hike and snowshoe in the Santa Fe National Forest; in fact, some of my most important memories of my mother, who died in 2025, are of us snowshoeing together in National Forest lands. I would be devastated if I were to return to those places and find them criss-crossed with roads. Thirdly, as a taxpayer, I am completely opposed to using my tax dollars to build new roads which then are more likely to increase forest fires—which also need to be fought using my tax dollars. A January 2026 scholarly article in journal Fire Ecology [full citation below*] concluded that: “The highest wildfire-ignition density was in lands within 50 m of roads (7.99 fires/1000 ha), and the second highest wildfire-ignition density was in other national forest lands outside of the 50-m road buffers but not in wilderness or roadless areas (3.50 fires/1000 ha).” In plain English that means that fires are most likely to start within 50 meters of roads, not in roadless areas. So, please, don’t try to claim that the repeal of the Roadless Rule is to prevent or reduce wildfires—we, the public, know better! In summary, keep the Roadless Rule as is--it has served the voting public well for twenty-five years and there are no valid reasons to change it. * Aplet, G.H., Hartger, P. & Dietz, M.S. Three-decade record of contiguous-U.S. national forest wildfires indicates increased density of ignitions near roads. fire ecol 22, 8 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-026-00450-2

Re: RIN 0596-AD66; Docket No. FS-2025-0001 To USDA and the U.S. Forest Service: I strongly oppose rescission of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and urge USDA to select the No Action Alternative and retain the Roadless Rule. Rescission is inconsistent with scientific evidence concerning roads, watershed health, aquatic habitat, and wildfire risk. New Mexico contains hundreds of thousands of acres of Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs) protecting headwaters, wildlife habitat, and intact landscapes. The Gila National Forest alone contains 733,836 acres in 29 IRAs, including Devils Creek, Frisco Box, Eagle Peak, Meadow Creek, Gila Box, Lower San Francisco, and areas adjoining the Gila and Aldo Leopold Wildernesses. Other important IRAs include Ryan Hill, Apache Kid, San Jose, and Datil on the Cibola NF and South Guadalupe Mountains, Little Dog and Pup Canyons, and Ortega Peak on the Lincoln NF. Protecting intact headwaters is particularly important in arid New Mexico. Roads are major sources of sediment and watershed degradation. They compact soils, concentrate runoff, and deliver sediment to streams. Reid and Dunne (1984) found a heavily used gravel road produced approximately 130 times the sediment of an abandoned road, while Motha et al. (2003) found unsealed forest roads produced 20–60 times more sediment per unit area than undisturbed forest. Fine sediment degrades aquatic habitat by filling pools and embedding streambed gravels. Roads and stream crossings also fragment aquatic habitat and alter watershed processes. Jones et al. (2000) documented road effects on hydrology, geomorphology, and stream networks. Warren and Pardew (1998) found culvert and slab crossings reduced fish movement compared with natural stream reaches. This is especially concerning in New Mexico, where perennial aquatic habitat is already limited. USDA's wildfire rationale also fails to account for roads increasing wildfire ignitions. Balch et al. (2017) found humans caused 84% of recorded wildfires in the conterminous U.S. in their 1992–2012 dataset. Aplet et al. (2026), specifically examining National Forest lands, found wildfire ignition density of only 1.97 fires/1,000 ha in IRAs versus 7.99 fires/1,000 ha within 50 meters of roads. Human-caused ignition density within 250 meters of roads was more than three times greater than beyond 500 meters. Building roads into roadless areas therefore risks creating more fires through increased human access. Modern wildfire suppression also does not require permanent roads into every landscape. Smokejumpers, helitack, helicopters, airtankers, hotshots, and other resources allow firefighters, equipment, water, and retardant to reach remote fires. Roads remain useful, but new permanent roads are not a prerequisite for effective wildfire response. The Roadless Rule already provides exceptions for roads needed to address imminent threats from wildfire and other catastrophic events. New roads also create taxpayer liabilities. USDA acknowledges a $6.9 billion deferred-maintenance backlog for existing roads and bridges. Building more roads creates continuing costs for culverts, drainage, erosion repair, stream crossings, and eventual decommissioning. Finally, these National Forests belong to the American public. The original Roadless Rule followed approximately 1.6 million public comments. Public support remains overwhelming: a 2026 national survey reported 76% of likely voters supported the Roadless Rule and only 13% opposed it. These remaining roadless lands are a scarce national resource, not simply acreage awaiting development. I therefore request that USDA withdraw the proposed rescission and select the No Action Alternative, retaining the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. USDA should fully account for road-related sediment, altered hydrology, aquatic fragmentation, increased human-caused wildfire ignitions, and long-term maintenance costs. The scientific record does not demonstrate that eliminating national Roadless Rule protections is necessary for wildfire management or forest health. Please retain the Roadless Rule and protect these public lands for current and future generations. References: Reid & Dunne (1984), Water Resources Research 20:1753–1761; Motha et al. (2003), Water Resources Research 39; Jones et al. (2000), Conservation Biology; Warren & Pardew (1998), Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 127:637–644; Balch et al. (2017), PNAS 114:2946–2951; Aplet et al. (2026), Fire Ecology 22:8.

I strongly oppose the rescinding of the 2001 Roadless Rule. I am a mother to 2 boys who’ve been raised in the National Forests they were born into the ownership of, like all Americans. We have made priceless memories in America’s roadless areas through camping, hiking, hunting/fishing, foraging, and more. I oppose rescinding the Roadless Rule due to its impact on recreation, wildlife & wildfires. Just this past March, I had the pleasure of taking my kids on an adventure into a roadless area of New Mexico and got to pitch a tent with some of the most stunning views of the stars inside of a roadless area in the Lincoln National Forest, not far north of Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas. A few months prior, my husband went on an incredible mule deer hunting trip for the opportunity to feed our family (adding money for his license into the tourism economy, as well as conservation funding)and spent hours upon hours each day scouting these amazing animals that use these roadless areas to travel through. When it comes to recreation, our roadless areas provide backcountry recreation opportunities across 40 states. The Roadless Rule notes, “unlike Wilderness, the use of mountain bikes, and other mechanized means of travel is often allowed” as determined by individual forest plans. Over 17,700 miles of hiking and biking trails, over 1,500 miles of backcountry ski trails, and over 3,000 climbing areas lie within these spots. Beyond camping, hiking, skiing, and climbing, these roadless areas also provide ample recreational opportunities for the hunter and angler. In Wyoming, 99% of the Roadless Rule serves as elk habitat; in New Hampshire, 97% serves as black bear habitat; in Arizona, 96% serves as mule deer habitat (OnX Maps). Backcountry access results in 10 times hunter success rates for elk to that of similar public land habitat without Roadless protection. The Tongass National Forest holds 70% of of its Chinook, coho, pink and chum salmon and over 65% of its sockeye and steelhead salmon in its roadless areas. This forest produces more salmon than all the other National Forests combined. Road construction has many negative impacts for fish habitat through heavy stream-bed sedimentation, habitat fragmentation from culverts, and accelerated runoff. Rollins claims rescinding the Roadless Rule would help suppress wildfires in the backcountry, and while it may be true that roads would provide more access to fire fighters, the data shows the risk of wildfires would exponentially increase. Analysis by OnX reveals just 3% of wildfires within the last 50 years have ignited in Roadless Rule areas. The rule explicitly allows for wildfire suppression and fuel reduction including road construction in emergency situations. Studies also have shown that 90% of wildfires have started within 1/2 mile of a road, likely due to increased human activity. The Roadless Rule saves the American Taxpayer money by limiting costly road-building and road maintenance in its remote forests. The National Forest System already carries a $10.8 billion maintenance backlog. The text of the Roadless Rule itself acknowledges the USFS could not maintain its existing road systems. The Roadless Rule has made hunting, fishing, camping, and other recreation better for the last 25 years while simultaneously improving water quality, wildlife habitat, and American’s right to recharge and restore. The Roadless Rule is one of the most popular rules ever implemented in USDA history, with over 95% of the 1.6 million comments in 2001 supporting roadless protections. For all these reasons, I oppose the rescinding of the Roadless Rule, and . I ask that before moving forward, the agency: * Conduct a thorough environmental analysis of roadless areas to assess the impacts of additional road building; * Guarantee that no watersheds will be negatively affected by rescission; * Develop and share a detailed plan for addressing its existing backlog in road maintenance and repairs; * And commit to moving forward with transparency, including a full account of how public comments were considered and concerns addressed. Please protect America’s remaining roadless areas for current and future generations. Savannah S - American mother, angler, hunter, and public land lover