The proposed 2001 Roadless Rule Conservation Area Rescission Draft Environmental Impact Statement fails the Administrative Procedures Act and “hard look” requirements because NEPA has not been adequately completed to analyze the effects of the proposed rescission on the human environment.
There is no adequate or current map for the NFS motor vehicle use system for neither the Department nor the public to account for current roads or the density of roads in inventoried roadless areas. As established by Center for Biological Diversity v. USFS (9th Cir.), in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled on a consolidated appeal concerning the Black Ram Project in Montana's Kootenai National Forest, agency decisions must account for unauthorized or user-created roads and consider them when analyzing for effects of motor vehicle use on natural resources in NFS lands. The presence of these roads, while illegal, is widely known. The Ninth Circuit's decision makes it clear that the agency must consider such roads in metrics analyzing effects and the degrees of such effects of the proposed action. Given that there is no mapping to that extent, or other materials that would provide evidence that such roads were accounted for in effects analysis, the Department has not presented sufficient analysis of reasonably foreseeable effects of the proposed rescission in the DEIS.
By conducting analysis under an EIS, the Department anticipates that significant effects to the environment are likely. Such effects merit a review of project impacts that are informed by contextualizing the proposed action within the overall condition of the human environment. Activities in a project’s vicinity, such as user created roads and trails in which motor vehicles can be used, are relevant to the analysis of the reasonably foreseeable effects of this proposed rescission per recent case law (2025). The DEIS does not provide this information, and thereby fails the Administrative Procedures Act and “hard look” requirements without such mapping and accompanying analysis. In summary, there is not sufficient analysis for the Department to move forward with altering the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
Sincerely,
Amy Mayedo