The U.S. Department of Agriculture filed a proposed rule last week to rescind the Roadless Rule.
It’s a rule created in 2001 that designates certain public lands as areas where roads cannot be built.
In Wisconsin, 69,000 acres are designated as Inventoried Roadless Areas.
The USDA says the roadless rule is a “barrier to wildfire risk reduction” in national forests.
“Our forests can’t afford another decade of inaction. Across the country, we’ve watched preventable conditions – overgrown stands, insect outbreaks and disease – turn healthy landscapes into tinderboxes,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a statement announcing USDA’s intention to remove the roadless rule. “For too long, outdated restrictions have kept tens of millions of forested acres off-limits to the very treatments that improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk to our communities. Today, we filed a proposal to restore authority to local forest managers who know the land best, removing the barriers that have kept them from doing the work the land demands. It’s time to turn the page on the failed roadless rule and return our forests to health and productivity.”
Those in favor of that rescinding the roadless have criticized its one size fits all approach across national forestland.
Opponents of the recission point to studies that show roads don’t appear to have an impact one way or another on wildfires.
“The reality that many of us know very well this summer in Wisconsin, where we've seen the droughts and the excessive heat and the lack of rain, is that climate change is bringing more fires. It's unfortunate, and but it is the reality,” said Elizabeth Ward, director of the Wisconsin Chapter of the Sierra Club. "We're getting more wildfires here, and that's in large part because of climate change. I think if we're worried about these fires, we should be taking bold, bigger steps to address climate change.”
Supporters of keeping the roadless rule say it protects critical forest habitat and should not be rescinded.
“These are parts of our forests that remain wild,” said Ward. “They're largely untouched, which is so important for the ecosystem and the wildlife to thrive there. We don't have many places left like this on the planet, but certainly not in the country. So, protecting these places are important from that standpoint.”
When the Trump Administration first brought up rescinding the roadless rule, the Sierra Club started hosting a series of town halls, including on in Rhinelander, to collect public comment on it.
Ward says now that the comment period is open, they’ll be submitting the comments they collected.
“It was abundantly clear that people from environmentalists to wildlife advocates to hunting and other sportsmen to just people worried about a good use of taxpayer money, across the board the roadless rule was supported,” said Ward. “It's an incredibly popular rule that's been in place for decades, and that became very clear. People felt extremely strongly that the rules should be protected.”
Written public comment on the rescission is open now through September 21.
For comparison, when the rule was first created the Forest Service held 600 public meetings and 1.6 million public comments gathered over 18 months.
Comments at that time were overwhelmingly in favor of putting the rule in place as a way to protect land and save on the costs of maintaining and building roads.
“It's important to make sure we're on record that the public supports this rule. The Trump Administration is likely going to do what it's going to do, but we can always get that rule back,” said Ward. “There has been multiple pieces of legislation to codify the rule in law. Right now, it's just an administrative rule, but to codify it in law, showing this broad public support across the country, across the political spectrum for this rule, will hopefully trigger Congress to create this to make sure the roadless rule is law down the line, and it can't be overturned by one president.”
To comment on the proposed rule and draft environmental impact statement, go to Regulations.gov. Public comments must be received by midnight on Sept. 21.
