The Trump administration announced Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has taken the next step in repealing a rule protecting nearly 60 million acres of national forest land from logging and development, more than 10% of which is in Montana.
The 2001 Roadless Rule prohibits the construction of road and harvest of timber on inventoried roadless areas — roughly 30% of all Forest Service land — across the country, preserving intact ecosystems across huge swaths of federal public lands in western states.
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a press release that rescinding the rule will bring “common sense management” to national forest land, the Daily Montanan reports.
“Today marks a critical step forward in President Trump’s commitment to restoring local decision-making to federal land managers to empower them to do what’s necessary to protect America’s forests and communities from devastating destruction from fires,” Rollins said. “This administration is dedicated to removing burdensome, outdated, one-size-fits-all regulations that not only put people and livelihoods at risk but also stifle economic growth in rural America. It is vital that we properly manage our federal lands to create healthy, resilient, and productive forests for generations to come.”
The U.S. Forest Service will publish its Notice of Intent in the Federal Register on Aug. 29, kicking off a 21-day public comment period that will run through Sept. 19.
The order will apply to nearly 45 million acres of Forest Service Land, according to USDA, and aligns with two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump aimed at increasing logging operations on federal land.
The USDA Forest Service opened the public comment on Friday. To learn how to submit a comment, visit Federalregister.gov.
Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz, who previously worked for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and for a large lumber producer in Idaho. In a statement, he said changes in management strategy reflect how forests have changed during the last 25 years.
“The Roadless Rule has frustrated land managers and served as a barrier to action – prohibiting road construction, which has limited wildfire suppression and active forest management,” Schultz said. “The forests we know today are not the same as the forests of 2001. They are dangerously overstocked and increasingly threatened by drought, mortality, insect-borne disease, and wildfire. It’s time to return land management decisions where they belong – with local Forest Service experts who best understand their forests and communities.”
Schultz was in Montana last week, meeting with Congressional leaders in the Western Caucus, where he advocated for increasing logging operations and increased access on federal lands.
Montana’s Roadless Areas
Montana has 6.4 million acres of inventoried roadless rule, roughly 37% of all Forest Service land in the state. The state contains the third most inventoried roadless Forest Service land behind Alaska’s 15 million acres and Idaho’s 9.3 million acres.
“This is another huge win for Montana and forest management. This latest news from the USDA shows that the Trump administration is committed to Montana-First priorities,” Sen. Steve Daines, a Republican, said in a previous statement. “By rolling back the outdated Roadless Rule, we’ll be better equipped to manage our Montana forests and protect our communities. I applaud Secretary Rollins for this decision to give our local forests more tools to manage our state’s national forests.”
Montana’s eastern Congressman, Rep. Troy Downing called the move “long overdue.”
But while elected officials, including Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, praised the move, many conservation and environmental groups decried it as putting the state’s public lands at risk.
“America’s national forests give us clean air, water, wildlife, and the freedom for all to enjoy the outdoors,” said The Wilderness Society President Tracy Stone-Manning, the former director of the Bureau of Land Management under President Biden and a former Montana department head. “But now they are the latest target in this administration’s unpopular push to give away our lands to drill, mine and log. Gutting the Roadless Rule—which has protected our forests for 25 years—would be the single largest rollback of conservation protections in our nation’s history. Americans cherish their public lands and deserve leaders who protect them for future generations, not give them away to corporations that exploit them.”
In Montana, each major national forest would be impacted by the rescission.
The Flathead National Forest includes an inventoried roadless area spanning 478,000 acres, along the western edge of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area and throughout the Whitefish Range. In the Gallatin National Forest, more than 31% of land — 552,000 acres — prohibits road construction including throughout the Crazy Mountains and the Madison range south of Bozeman; In the Kootenai National Forest, more than 600,000 acres of roadless area borders the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness; the Bitterroot National Forest has more than 200,00 acres of roadless area bordering the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness; and the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest includes more than 1.6 million acres of roadless area.
“Rolling back the Roadless Rule is another step in the plan to take public lands away from the American people, selling out our shared places and making us less safe to maximize corporate profits,” said Wild Montana Federal Policy Director Hilary Eisen. “The Rule allows for a wide variety of fire suppression activities. Pretending otherwise is a flimsy cover story for handing our treasured places over to industrial interests. Building unnecessary roads will lead to more fires, not fewer, and stripping protections from 60 million acres threatens Montana’s clean water, public access, and our freedom to hike, hunt, fish, camp, ride, climb, and ski.”
“When this rule was considered in 2000, tens of thousands of Montanans, including many Wild Montana members, participated in the process by attending public meetings and submitting comments. Montanans overwhelmingly supported the Roadless Rule then, and we still do,” Eisen added.
While many industry leaders and politicians have praised the move as a way to bolster the timber industry, Forest Service documents from the Roadless Rule’s inception indicate that the reduction in annual harvest from the creation of roadless areas was likely to amount to less than 1% of the state’s historic timber harvest.
Oregon U.S. Rep Andrea Salinas, a Democrat, has introduced the Roadless Area Conservation Act to make the Roadless Rule a federal law, which has garnered 50 cosponsors within the party.
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