Comment Analysis · Docket FS-2025-0001

FS-2025-0001-448686

Opposes rescissionA1 strongSubstance 16/24Owed an answerPosted September 21, 2026 On Regulations.gov

In short: The comment places on the record specific data from the DEIS and Cost Benefit Analysis demonstrating that roads increase wildfire risk and that the economic benefits of rescission are uncertain, while citing Tenth Circuit precedent to challenge the agency's legal authority to rescind the rule.

Scored directly — The comment's whole text was scored on its own.

Scorecard

Each dimension is scored 0–3; the eight sum to the substance score out of 24.

Specific placeNames a specific location — from a region down to an exact creek, trail, road, or map reference.
Local knowledgeDraws on a first-hand connection to the place — visits, sustained activity, occupation, or a professional role.
EA analysisEngages the agency's environmental analysis directly.
Analytical gapIdentifies something the analysis fails to address.
EvidenceBacks claims with specific facts, data, or research.
RequestMakes a specific, actionable request of the agency.
AlternativeProposes a different course of action.
LegalCites statutes, regulations, or legal obligations.

How hard it is to set aside

A1 strong: Must be answered — it names the law.

Owed an answer on Analytical gap, Evidence, Legal.

Standard dismissals it defeats

Already addressed The agency says its analysis already covers the point. Defeated when the comment cites the law itself: there is no analysis to cite against a statutory claim.
Misreads the proposal The agency says the comment misunderstands what is proposed. Defeated when the comment engages the proposal or a named place directly.
No cause and effect shown The agency says the comment asserts a harm without showing how the action causes it. Defeated when the comment shows the mechanism.
Outside the scope The agency says the comment asks about a different action. Defeated when the comment is specific and tied to this proposal.
Certified not substantive The agency certifies the comment raises nothing substantive. Defeated when the comment alleges illegality, which is substantive by the definition the certification runs on.

Still open to the agency

Alternative already eliminated The agency says it considered and eliminated the alternative the comment proposes, with a reason. Cannot be defeated from the comment text alone.
Deferred to a later decision The agency says the point belongs to a later, site-specific decision. Cannot be defeated from the comment text alone.
Not required The agency says the analysis the comment asks for is not required. Cannot be defeated from the comment text alone.
Preference noted The agency notes the comment as a statement of preference and takes no action on it. Cannot be defeated from the comment text alone.

Topics

Water Quality Quantity
- “sediment, chemicals, and trash from nearby roads trash the water”
- “clean and abundant water it provides as a major tributary to the Animas River”
- “325 municipal water intakes sit in watersheds containing affected roadless areas”
Forest Management Wildfire
- “survived the 416 fire remarkably well because of fire mitigation work”
- “human-caused wildland fire is nearly five times more likely to occur on essentially roaded lands”
- “roads raise fire risk rather than reduce it”
Legal Regulatory Framework
- “That argument did not survive judicial review the last time the agency pursued it”
- “found the rule within the authority Congress granted under the Organic Act”
- “agency must explain how this proposal avoids the specific deficiencies identified by the Ninth Circuit”
Recreation Tourism Public Use
- “Hunting and fishing and climbing in Colorado's national forests are not abstractions”
- “recreation losses of at least $6.1 million a year”
- “fish and backpack and climb”

What it names

National Forests: San Juan National Forest
Roadless areas: HermosaRocky MountainSan Miguel
Law cited: 28 U.S.C. Section 1291

The comment

Shaded passages are the ones the analysis quoted as evidence for a dimension: Analytical gapLegal

Re: Rescission of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, Docket FS-2025-0001 Hunting and fishing and climbing in Colorado's national forests are not abstractions to me. I grew up hunting with my father, and I feed my family with game meat. I am raising daughters who cherish wildlife, and who fish and backpack and climb. My father taught my daughters to fish the way he taught me. I have watched what roads do to fisheries: sediment, chemicals, and trash from nearby roads trash the water. I have been going to the Hermosa roadless area since 2008. It holds some of the largest trees in Colorado, and it survived the 416 fire remarkably well because of fire mitigation work conducted on foot and aerially. Roads would ruin its character and the clean and abundant water it provides as a major tributary to the Animas River. That is the country I am defending here, and the country this rescission puts at risk. The agency's own record makes the wildfire argument for rescission hard to square with the data. The DEIS states: "Building a road into a forest at high risk from uncharacteristic wildfire effects could increase the incidence of human-caused fires. A human-caused wildland fire is nearly five times more likely to occur on essentially roaded lands than on essentially unroaded lands." Hermosa's survival of the 416 fire was not an accident, and the agency's own ignition data confirm that roads raise fire risk rather than reduce it. I ask that the agency explain, drawing on the specific findings in DEIS Table 21, how the proposal's wildfire rationale can be reconciled with these findings from its own draft environmental impact statement. The economic case for rescission is equally difficult to defend on the record. The agency itself has found that "the total timber volume affected by this rule is less than 0.5 percent of total United States production, and the total oil and gas production from all National Forest System lands is currently about 0.4 percent of the current national production." Against that baseline, the agency's own Cost Benefit Analysis projects timber revenue to the Forest Service of between $5.2 and $11.4 million a year, recreation losses of at least $6.1 million a year, and a net present value ranging from negative $92 million to positive $199 million. A range that spans nearly $300 million and cannot establish a net benefit does not justify adding to a road maintenance backlog already sitting at $6.9 billion. The agency must reconcile that internal contradiction before proceeding. The legal history here is not a minor footnote. The proposal argues that state-by-state approaches can substitute for one national rule, but the record shows how that played out before. The agency previously described its own dissatisfaction with the national rule and "highlighted its rejection of the Roadless Rule's 'inflexible one-size-fits-all nationwide rulemaking approach.'" That argument did not survive judicial review the last time the agency pursued it. The agency's own prior findings acknowledge that incremental local decisions can erode nationally significant roadless values in ways a state process cannot prevent. The agency must explain how this proposal avoids the specific deficiencies identified by the Ninth Circuit when the national rule was last replaced with a state-by-state framework. On authority, the agency argues the 2001 rule exceeded its statutory power. The courts that examined that question held otherwise. The Tenth Circuit stated: "Exercising jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Section 1291, we REVERSE the district court's order granting Plaintiffs declaratory relief and issuing a permanent injunction, and REMAND the case for the district court to vacate the permanent injunction." That court found the rule within the authority Congress granted under the Organic Act and the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act, and found it did not create de facto wilderness. The agency must explain in its final response the legal basis for any position that conflicts with that holding. Colorado holds 326 inventoried roadless areas totaling 4,407,277 acres. Across the Rocky Mountain region, 325 municipal water intakes sit in watersheds containing affected roadless areas. Hermosa, the Piedra SMU, and the San Miguel areas in the San Juan National Forest represent the kind of country, the fisheries, the wildlife habitat, the clean water, that the 2001 rule was built to protect. The Hermosa drainage is already providing water to the Animas River system, and I have watched it do so since 2008. The agency has not shown that rescission improves on that outcome by any measure its own record supports. Sincerely, Kevin Heiner Durango, CO