WWA
May 15, 2026
Voice your support for our roadless wildlands by opposing a bill that would nullify the 2001 Roadless Rule.
On Feb 25, 2026, Congresswoman Harriet Hageman (WY) introduced HR 7695, which would nullify the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The Federal Lands Subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee will have a hearing next week on Tuesday, May 19, to consider this legislation.
Contact these committee members by Monday, May 18, to voice your support for the Roadless Rule by asking them to OPPOSE Hageman's short-sighted and harmful HR 7695 bill.
Lands without roads encompass some of our nation’s most pristine forest lands, intact habitats, clean air and water, and unparalleled opportunities for outdoor recreation. For over a quarter of a century, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule has protected fifty-eight million acres of these national forest lands nationwide, including more than three million acres right here in Wyoming, from new road building to large-scale industrial development.
While the Trump administration has announced intentions to rescind the Roadless Rule, HR 7695, if passed, would be even worse than rescission: it would not only strip our roadless wildlands of their protection, but make it illegal to ever restore those protections. It also goes so far as to mandate new roads. HR 7695 is a bad bill.
The Roadless Rule is extremely popular policy. Prior to enactment, more than six hundred public hearings were held nationwide and 1.6 million Americans weighed in to call for protection of our national forest lands. Last summer, when the Trump administration submitted a proposal to repeal the Roadless Rule entirely, more than 625,000 public comments flooded into the USFS in response, 99% of which opposed the proposed rollback.
Proponents of Hageman’s bill argue that opening roadless forests to development is necessary to generate revenue and to manage wildfires. This is false on both counts.
Studies show that the US Forest Service (USFS) regularly spends more preparing for and administering timber sales than it makes in profit, and that our roadless forests already generate nearly $25 billion annually, largely through recreation.
Our intact roadless forests are also critical to food security for many Indigenous communities, as well as for sustaining cultural practices including hunting, fishing, and gathering forest plants for food, medicine, and traditional arts. If commercial logging and roadbuilding were allowed in these special places, it would take decades for the forests to grow back, if they do at all.
To put it plainly, the investment made by protecting these forests far outweighs the short-term monetary gain, if any, that would be made from extractive activities.
It is also worth noting that there are already 370,000 miles of USFS roads across our country, with an estimated $9 billion backlog of maintenance. It feels hard to justify building more roads when we struggle to effectively manage the ones that already exist. This backlog was one of the many reasons the Roadless Rule was adopted in the first place.
Studies also show that wildfire ignition risk is higher in areas with roads than those without, due to increased mechanized human activity. This April, nearly one hundred and twenty firefighters attested to the Roadless Rule’s importance in a letter to Members of Congress, outlining the Roadless Rule’s enduring value for sustainable and safe wildland fire fighting across the country. At our recent Roadless Rambles event, Mike Maltaverne shared his perspective as a career firefighter on the impact that repealing the Roadless Rule would have on Wyoming.
Invalidating the Roadless Rule will not only not prevent wildfires, it could exacerbate the issue during one of the driest years in the American west’s history.
Please use your voice to protect the rule that protects our forests. Call or use our action portal to write to your electeds to let them know you support the Roadless Rule and want them to OPPOSE HR 7695:
Bill Sponsor:
Harriet Hageman (R-WY): (202) 225-2311
Federal Lands Subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee:
CHAIR:
Tom Tiffany (R-WI): (202) 225-3365
MEMBERS:
Mike Kennedy (R-UT): (202) 225-7751
Tom McClintock (R-CA): (202) 225-2511
Mark Amodei (R-NV): (202) 225-6155
Russ Fulcher (R-ID): (202) 225-6611
Pete Stauber (R-MN): (202) 225-6211
Cliff Bentz (R-OR): (202) 225-6730
Wesley Hunt (R-TX): (202) 225-5646
Celeste Maloy (R-UT): (202) 225-9730
Thank you for standing up for our roadless forests! Submit your comments by Monday, May 18.