Take action to protect Roadless Forests today, contact Congress here!
On Saturday, April 4, 2026, the Uplands Network together with the Winding Waters Group of the Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter, with multiple other environmental organizations, came together at the Monroe County Public Library to call attention to the federal administration’s announcement in 2025 to cancel the Roadless Rule. What is the Roadless Rule, and why does the Sierra Club believe it should be kept intact?
The Roadless Rule was adopted by the U.S. Forest Service in 2001 with the intent of strengthening protections of federal lands. 60 million acres of public wilderness land was protected from logging, the building of new roads, and existing road use was restricted. The Roadless Rule serves the purpose of allowing roadless areas to remain wild, limiting human impacts through prohibitions against road construction and timber harvesting, as well as reducing maintenance costs of roads and facilities no longer being used. Rescinding the Roadless Rule allows logging to return to roadless areas, causing environmental harm and disruption to ecosystems that have been thriving with minimal human intervention for over 25 years.
Locally, the Hoosier National Forest (HNF) in Southern Indiana would be greatly affected were the law to take effect, increasing logging and degrading an ecosystem still recovering from total deforestation over 100 years ago. Rescinding the Roadless Rule not only has a negative effect on the physical environment of the HNF by logging our public land (your land), it also negatively affects the economic impact of tourism to the HNF. The HNF is the largest recreation area in the state at 205,000 acres, and hosts dozens of parks, lakes, campgrounds, hiking and biking trails, and resorts. Increased logging and controlled burns means decreased recreation opportunities and decreased economic impact for local economies.
According to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the USDA must follow due process when making changes to laws enacted by Congress. The APA requires the collection of public input, yet the public input period opened to offer comment in response to the rescission of the Roadless Rule was only 3 weeks back in September of 2025, when the usual period is many months, and comments were only collected online. Despite the short window, 625,000 public comments were submitted. To collect in-person testimony, public meetings must also be held by the USDA according to the APA, but this has not happened. Finally, an Environmental Impact Statement requirement, which generally takes years to complete, must be fulfilled, and was anticipated to be released as soon as this last March, only 9 months after the initial announcement. At the time of this writing it has not yet been released. As a result of the USDA’s flaunting of the APA-legislated requirements, there has been a recent flurry of environmental groups across the country holding their own town hall meetings to educate the public and raise the alarm in anticipation of the imminent release of this Impact Statement.
The Roadless Rule Forest Forum in Bloomington was the first such public meeting in the state of Indiana, while similar meetings are being held in other areas of the country. Sierra Club Chapters across the country, from Washington and Oregon SCs, to West Virginia SC and Maine SCs, and countless other environmental organizations, are holding their own public meetings this week to call attention to the issue and help to raise the alarm. There has likewise been a recent social media storm spreading the word about the unlawful rescission of the Roadless Rule.
The Hoosier Chapter Sierra Club Roadless Rule Forest Forum succeeded in collecting representatives from Hoosier environmental organizations such as Indiana Forest Alliance, Protect our Woods, Friends of Lake Monroe, and Women with Guts Productions. An impressive list of speakers including President of Friends of Lake Monroe and former USFS staff member Sherry Mitchell-Bruker, and Jeff Stant, one of the original members of the Uplands Group of the Sierra Club, all contributed, expressing their concern and addressing the potential local impact on the Hoosier National forest. At the Roadless Rule Forest Forum, Indiana environmental organizations made it clear that they do not support the illegal rescission of the Roadless Rule.
Now, your help is needed. The baton is being passed to you! Please share far and wide the news of the impending Impact Analysis and unlawful rescission of the Roadless Rule. Your public lands are being illegally opened up to logging without due course at the expense of the environment and at the expense of your rights as a US citizen to dictate how your public lands are used. It’s not too late to make your voice heard. We encourage you to reach out to US Senators Jim Banks and Todd Young of Indiana, asking them to challenge the illegal rescission of the Roadless Rule in Congress.
Take action to protect Roadless Forests today, contact Congress here!
Jennifer Ehara
Winding Waters Group Executive Committee
and Hoosier Chapter Sierra Club Communications Team