Comment Analysis · Docket FS-2025-0001

FS-2025-0001-572803

From California Environmental Voters

Opposes rescissionPosted October 6, 2026 On Regulations.gov

Not scored for substance: the comment does not clear the floor of substantive signal.

The comment

The following petition, organized by California Environmental Voters, was signed by 2,177 people. Their names are attached in a PDF. I urge you to protect our national parks and forests by keeping the Roadless Rule intact. This rule has protected old growth forests across the United States for more than 20 years while allowing Americans like me to hike, fish, and camp in these undisturbed natural spaces. Without the Roadless Rule, our forests face dangers like: Water Pollution: Logging on these lands could endanger clean drinking water for millions of people. Wildfires: Forests with roads nearby are four times more likely to have wildfires. Loss of Wildlife: New roads will carve through and permanently destroy vital habitats for threatened and endangered species.

Topics

Water Quality Quantity
- “Water Pollution”
- “endanger clean drinking water”
- “Logging on these lands”
Wildlife Habitat
- “Loss of Wildlife”
- “destroy vital habitats”
- “threatened and endangered species”
Forest Management Wildfire
- “Forests with roads nearby are four times more likely to have wildfires”
- “Wildfires”
Recreation Tourism Public Use
- “hike, fish, and camp”
- “undisturbed natural spaces”
- “protect our national parks and forests”

Attachments

1 file from California Environmental Voters. Counts as 2,099 — Counted from the files: The enclosed submissions were counted from the files themselves.

Enclosed submissions

Sharing & methodology

These results are meant to be shared.

Please cite us. This analysis is the intellectual property of Roadless.org and Nicholas Holshouser. You are welcome to reproduce it — every reproduction must include this citation:

Roadless.org and Nicholas Holshouser, “2001 Roadless Rule Revision — Substantive Analysis,” https://roadless.org.

How it works. A large language model (an open-weight Qwen3.8 model) reads each substantive comment and copies, word for word, the passages that carry its analytical gap, evidence, request, alternative and connection to the place; it returns no scores. Code grades those passages 0–3 on eight dimensions — evidence, legal grounding, engagement with the environmental analysis, analytical gaps, alternatives, specific requests, position, and local knowledge — with legal grounding taken from a citation scan, not the model. For the strongest tenth on each side, the copied passages are checked against the comment and shown as exhibits. A comment counts as “substantive” when it clears a floor filter — it must show at least one substantive signal (a named entity, a specific citation, a stated analytical deficiency, or first-person testimony), which screens out one-line and purely conclusory submissions before any model scoring.

The full method. Every step, why it is done that way, its known limits and a glossary: Methodologies →

The data. The full canonical dataset — every comment on Docket FS-2025-0001 — is available from Regulations.gov: https://www.regulations.gov/bulkdownload.

Roadless.org — analysis of the public comment docket.
Media inquiries welcome — nicholas@wanderingnature.com.