The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which restricts road construction and certain forest management activities across more than 44 million acres of national forests. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says the decades-old restrictions have limited efforts to improve forest health and reduce wildfire risks. Rollins says overgrown forests, insect outbreaks, and diseases have created conditions that can turn healthy landscapes into wildfire hazards. She says the proposal would give local forest managers more authority to address conditions based on the needs of individual forests. Deputy Agriculture Secretary Stephen (Steven) Vaden called the proposal commonsense policy and said better forest management begins with having access to the land. The Roadless Rule has been in place for 25 years and applies across the country, regardless of local management needs. The Forest Service will accept public comments on the proposed rule and a draft environmental impact statement published in the Federal Register.
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