I strongly oppose the proposed repeal of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. I live in East Tennessee, near the Great Smoky Mountains, and I know firsthand that our forests are not simply timber waiting to be harvested or land waiting for another road. They are living ecosystems, watersheds, wildlife habitat, carbon storage, recreation, and an essential part of our communities and economy.
The proposed rule would rescind protections covering approximately 44.7 million acres of inventoried roadless National Forest System lands. The current Roadless Rule generally prohibits road construction, road reconstruction, and timber harvesting in these areas, with limited exceptions. Repealing that nationwide protection would shift decisions to individual forest management plans and local Forest Service officials.
That matters enormously in Appalachia.
The Great Smoky Mountains are the most biologically diverse national park in the United States. More than 22,000 species have been documented there, including approximately 1,000 species new to science, and scientists estimate that tens of thousands more species may remain undiscovered. The park contains more than 2,900 miles of streams, 79 vegetation communities, and eight major forest types covering 96% of its area.
These forests are not scenery. They are infrastructure.
Healthy, intact forests protect watersheds, reduce erosion, provide wildlife corridors, store carbon, support biodiversity, and help regulate water and soil. Roads through previously undeveloped forests can fragment habitat, increase human disturbance, alter drainage, and create pathways for invasive species and other ecological impacts. Once an intact landscape is fragmented, the consequences can persist long after construction ends.
And here in East Tennessee, protecting forests is also protecting our economy. Great Smoky Mountains National Park welcomed approximately 12.2 million visitors in 2024. Those visitors spent more than $2 billion in surrounding communities, generating a cumulative economic benefit of more than $2.8 billion. Our forests are already producing enormous public value without being converted into road networks or timber projects.
I recognize that the Forest Service has legitimate responsibilities involving wildfire management, forest health, emergency access, and responsible stewardship. Those needs should be addressed with targeted, science-based management—not by eliminating a nationwide safeguard covering tens of millions of acres.
The fact that individual future projects would still require environmental review does not make repeal harmless. Preventing unnecessary fragmentation in the first place is fundamentally different from trying to evaluate and mitigate damage after a road or timber project has been proposed.
I urge the Forest Service and USDA to retain the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
As an East Tennessee resident, I believe we have a responsibility to protect the Appalachian forests that surround us—not just for the people who live here today, but for our children and the generations who will come after us.
The Smokies have endured for millions of years. We should not be the generation that makes them more fragmented, more vulnerable, and less wild simply because previously protected forests became easier to develop.
Please preserve the Roadless Rule and protect America’s remaining intact forest ecosystems.