Opposes rescissionA0 noneSubstance 5/24Posted August 21, 2026 On Regulations.gov
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Re: Docket FS-2025-0001; RIN 0596-AD66
I strongly oppose the proposed rescission of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. I urge the Forest Service to retain the existing rule and select the No Action Alternative.
I live in North Carolina and regularly visit national forests and other public lands. My experiences include the Pisgah, Nantahala, and Croatan National Forests in North Carolina, as well as the Sequoia and Sierra National Forests in California, Finger Lakes National Forest in New York, Mount Hood National Forest in Oregon, Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming, and Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota.
Seeing national forests across so many different parts of the country has strengthened my belief that inventoried roadless areas deserve a consistent national standard of protection. These forests differ greatly in geography, ecology, and climate, but their relatively undeveloped areas provide many of the same irreplaceable public benefits: clean water, connected wildlife habitat, biological diversity, carbon storage, and opportunities for quiet recreation and solitude.
The Roadless Rule is not an absolute prohibition on responsible forest management. It contains limited exceptions that allow necessary actions under appropriate circumstances. The Forest Service should address demonstrated local needs through those exceptions and other existing management tools—not eliminate baseline protections across tens of millions of acres.
I am particularly concerned that rescission would replace a durable national safeguard with a fragmented system of forest-level decisions. Even if the proposed rule does not immediately authorize a particular road or timber project, it would remove the protection that currently stands between these lands and future road construction, logging, and development. Site-specific reviews after the rule is rescinded would not provide the same landscape-level protection, and requiring members of the public, Tribes, and conservation organizations to contest damaging proposals one at a time would impose a substantial and continuing burden.
The economic case for rescission is also unconvincing. The Forest Service already faces a multibillion-dollar deferred-maintenance backlog for existing roads and bridges. Building additional roads into undeveloped areas could create new maintenance obligations while fragmenting habitat, increasing erosion, degrading water quality, and introducing more opportunities for human-caused wildfire ignitions and invasive species. The agency’s own proposal also recognizes possible losses to quiet, remote recreation and its associated economic benefits.
National forests belong to all Americans, not only the industries or interests seeking short-term access to their resources. Visitors travel across state lines to hike, camp, view wildlife, fish, hunt, and experience places that remain largely undeveloped. Communities also depend on intact forest watersheds and recreation-based economies. Once a road is constructed and an area is fragmented, its roadless character cannot be readily restored.
Local expertise should inform forest management, but local discretion and national protection are not mutually exclusive. The Roadless Rule establishes a reasonable national floor while still permitting narrowly defined exceptions. Repealing that floor would expose nationally significant public lands to inconsistent protections and changing political or commercial pressures.
Please withdraw the proposed rescission, retain the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, and adopt the No Action Alternative. Future generations deserve the same opportunity to experience these forests—and the clean water, wildlife habitat, resilience, and public benefits they provide—that I have had.
Thank you considering my comments.