(Note: This comment has been submitted as part of the document entitled "20261006_McNamara_FS-2025-0001-223869_Opposition.pdf". It has been submitted as a separate comment here as well for additional documentation purposes.)
As a Colorado resident, I oppose the proposal to either partially or fully rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. This proposal claims: “there is a need to increase local management flexibility and, where necessary, allow for active management to respond to changing and localized conditions, such as increasing wildfire risk, the spread of insect and disease infestations, and the need for community protection in the wildland-urban interface.” Per the current code of regulations (as of Oct 6, 2026) in Title 36 Part 294, roads and temporary roads can already be constructed for a number of exceptions including, but not limited to: a) a road being needed pursuant to reserved or outstanding rights (such as existing mining claims), b) a temporary road being needed to protect public health and safety in cases of imminent threat of flood, fire, or other catastrophic event that, without intervention, would cause the loss of life or property, and c) a temporary road is needed to facilitate tree cutting, sale, or removal within the first one-half mile of the community protection zone to reduce the wildfire hazard to an at-risk community or municipal water supply system. There are plenty of provision in the 2001 Roadless Rule to allow for active management of roadless land to mitigate wildfire and natural disaster risk and respond to changing and localized conditions. Fully or partially rescinding the existing roadless rule is unnecessary to mitigate wildfire and community safety hazards at the wildland-urban interface.
Additionally, the rationale for this proposal states: “The Secretary of Agriculture has broad authority under statutes such as the Organic Administration Act of 1897 and the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960 to manage the National Forest System for a variety of uses. Just as the establishment of the 2001 Roadless Rule was discretionary, this proposed rule is an exercise of discretion to determine the most appropriate process for balancing competing values and uses in inventoried roadless areas within that legal framework.” The Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960 (MUSYA) provides the Forest Service authority to manage national forest and grasslands ‘‘for outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes.’’ The National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA) reaffirmed multiple-use and sustained-yield as the guiding principles for land management planning of National Forest System lands (16 U.S.C. 1600, 1604). In defining ‘‘multiple use,’’ the MUSYA clearly provides that under multiple-use management some land will be used for less than all of the possible resource uses of the national forests and grasslands. The Roadless Area Conservation rule, currently allows a multitude of activities including motorized uses, grazing, and oil and gas development that does not require new roads to continue in inventoried roadless areas. The National Forest System contains an extensive system of existing roads; the current roadless rule does not close or otherwise block access to any of those roads. Under the existing roadless rule, management actions that do not require the construction of new roads are allowed, including activities such as timber harvesting for clearly defined, limited purposes, development of valid claims of locatable minerals, grazing of livestock, and off-highway vehicle use where specifically permitted. Existing classified roads in inventoried roadless areas may be maintained and used for these and other activities as well. Forest health treatments for the purposes of improving threatened, endangered, proposed, or sensitive species habitat or maintaining or restoring the characteristics of ecosystem composition and structure, such as reducing the risk of uncharacteristic wildfire effects, are also already allowed under the current rule where access can be gained through existing roads, by equipment not requiring roads, or under the exceptions started above.