For more information about the Roadless Rule, we are sharing the recent article by Tennessee Legal and Water Committee's Chair Axel Ringe (From August '25 E-News).
From Axel Ringe, August 2025 -
For nearly 25 years, the U.S. Department of Forest Service's Roadless Area Conservation Rule has protected over 58 million acres of national forestland from new road construction, reconstruction, and most timber harvesting. There are protected Roadless Areas in 39 states, including 85,000 acres in Tennessee's Cherokee National Forest; nearly a quarter of New Mexico’s Gila National Forest; and 9 million acres of coastal rainforest in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.
On June 23, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that her agency is rescinding the Roadless Rule, calling it “overly restrictive” and “outdated.” Rescinding it, Rollins promises, will “remove prohibitions on road construction, reconstruction, and timber harvest … allowing for fire prevention and responsible timber production.”
Rollins is using two of Donald Trump’s executive orders to justify the move: One demands expanded timber production; another calls for making wildfire prevention and response more effective, in part by easing burdensome rules and regulations.
But these justifications betray ignorance about the lands the Roadless Rule protects and the reasons the rule was created.
The Roadless Area Conservation Rule was established in 2001 following decades of unrestrained logging that left an $8.5 billion backlog of deferred maintenance on its vast network of roads. The rule protected the best of what was left—acreage that wasn’t protected as wilderness, but that was relatively intact and undeveloped.
Rollins’s retrograde proposal doesn’t just ignore the multi-layered benefits Roadless Areas provide; it also ignores the transformation of the Forest Service’s culture and mission over the last quarter century.
The Roadless Rule revocation is part of a suite of actions the Trump administration has taken to disempower and deregulate the Forest Service, from mass firings and forced resignations to attacks on safeguards like NEPA and the Endangered Species Act. The Forest Service has lost around 5,000 employees through deferred and early retirements.
Undoing the rule will require a rulemaking process that includes public notice and comment and environmental analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act, as well as national Historic Preservation Act consultation with tribes and states. There is a long administrative record justifying the Roadless Rule. Reversing it requires a rational explanation that judges will accept.
In the meantime, all of us who care about forests and public lands need to take actions to oppose the Administration's actions and to support the Roadless Area Conservation Act, which has been introduced in Congress and would codify the Roadless Rule into law. Write LTEs, spread the word over social media, sign petitions, and write your Congressional representatives and senators. Remember these are your lands. They shouldn't just be turned over to the logging and fossil fuel industries.