Roadless, Not Worthless: Why We Must Stop the USDA’s Rescission

Likely, this is not the first thing you have read when it comes to the recent announcement that the USDA intends to rescind the roadless rule. If you are like me, the headlines are popping up everywhere, and yet, what does it all mean? And why is it such a big deal?

For Wyoming Wilderness Association (WWA), the Roadless Rule and the Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs) that it protects are central to our mission. Lands without roads define the concept of wildlands, and are what drive the work of our organization. What's more, these lands are all of our beloved, wild backyards, and it is going to take all of us to save them.

Recently, a unified, bipartisan movement stood up and said “no” to the sell-off of our Public Lands, by getting Senator Mike Lee of Utah to remove language from the budget reconciliation bill. A map from The Wilderness Society (TWS) went viral that showed all lands that could potentially be sold. It was astounding to see what we stood to lose; it sent the public into an outrage, and it worked. Yet, while that map showed everywhere that could be sold within these land sales, a recent map from the Outdoor Alliance is now showing all of the wildlands that are going to be lost with the rescission of the Roadless Rule. Not a small portion of the land, as with the TWS map, but all of it! Take a moment and check out your favorite spots on your nearby National Forest, I bet that many of them are IRAs.

Granted, being released from a protection is not the same as being sold off to a private interest, this is important to note. However, being released from the IRA protection means that these lands will be opened up to the development, extraction and degradation of private interest. They will no longer be managed for habitat, clean water, clean air and recreation. They are being released so trees can be cut, oil and gas drilled, and minerals mined.

If you happen upon an argument in favor of the rescission, you likely have heard that it is to combat the growing threat of wildfire, but this is simply not true. In fact, the opposite is true. In a recent webinar hosted by a nascent coalition formed in response to the USDA announcement, participants heard from a panel of subject experts. Wildfire expert Rich Fairbanks explained that building roads into a landscape, fractures the landscape, introduces invasives that are notorious fine fuels, and then increases use of the area. With an increase of use and fine fuels comes an increase in the likelihood of fire. Conditions contributing to our extreme fire weather are not going to be solved by road building, it only stands to fan the flames. Other panelists went on to explain that even when the argument in favor of the rescission is based in the reality of a desire to increase extraction, the argument still doesn’t add up.

As has been historically understood and proven, the cost associated with building roads into these remote and rugged places (there is a reason they were not developed before this protection was put in place) far exceeds the amount that anyone stands to earn from the resources available.

See Talberth, Federal Logging Program Loses Billions for Taxpayers, https://www.sustainable-economy.org/federal-logging-program-loses-billions-for-taxpayers (2019); High Country News, “The Forest Service in Idaho is a Loser”, https://www.hcn.org/wp-content/uploads/1986/06/1986_06_23_rfs.pdf, p.7.

Since I started with WWA this April, we have sent out more action alerts than the organization sent in the entire 2024 calendar year. The chaos and confusion coming from the current administration is baffling. There are threats coming from every direction, and it is hard to know which issues to focus on. However, as I sift through the madness and budget my energy from one issue to the next,  the announcement that the USDA plans to rescind the Roadless Rule is about as daunting of a threat as we have faced so far. We absolutely cannot let it happen, and the small but mighty WWA staff absolutely cannot prevent it on our own. Our sources have shared that the USDA will likely announce a 14 day comment period this August. Please stay alert so we can come together and send a clear resounding “no” just as we did with the sale of our Public Lands. Our wild and roadless backyards need our collective voice soon, let’s raise it together.

Stay tuned. 

On July 24, nearly 40 House representatives sent a letter to the USDA demanding they stop the move to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Read the full letter here.