Comment on the proposed rescission of the Roadless Rule

Please get on board and send in a comment to demonstrate widespread public opposition. Please share this with your friends and family. The rescission of the Roadless Rule and other changes under the current administration will be a death knell for public lands. See a recent article by independent consultant Mike Baker on the perils of the combined onslaught of administrative changes.

Submit your comments on the Proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule

At this address: https://www.regulations.gov/document/FS-2025-0001-223869

Comments are due September 21, 2026

Please feel free to use these suggested talking points but please put them in your own words and express how important public lands are to you.

Suggested talking points for the proposed rescission of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule:

• Roadless Areas are biological strongholds for threatened and endangered species. Protections for Roadless Areas must be strengthened not removed. Even the less aggressive alternative 3 removes protects only 13 million acres, not even a third of the 44.7 million acres protected by the current rule.
• Roadless Areas promote biodiversity providing food and shelter to wildlife including ungulates, sensitive species, species of conservation concern, and eagles. 93% of Montana’s Roadless Areas provide summer range for elk.
• Roadless areas provide clean drinking water for millions of people in hundreds of cities and towns across the nation.
• Opening Roadless Areas to road construction, logging, mining, and oil and gas drilling will have significant adverse impacts to wildlife, clean drinking water, recreation, and natural and cultural resources.
• When road densities increase, wildlife habitat is dissected into smaller and smaller fragments. More roads inevitably lead to increased mortality for wildlife from vehicle collisions, poaching, and stress from human activities.
• Roads increase erosion and sedimentation into streams, decreasing habitat quality for aquatic species and increasing costs for treating drinking water. Nearly 70% of roadless areas provide vital habitat for species like native trout in the Rockies including endangered bull trout, brook trout in Appalachia, and salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest. These pristine headwaters and streams are essential spawning and rearing grounds.
• Rescinding the Roadless Rule could increase the number of wildfires. The Draft EIS admits that human-caused fires (which constitute the majority of fires) “increase in abundance with proximity to roads” and that wildfires are four times more likely to start in areas with roads versus Roadless Areas. Building more roads in Roadless Areas will likely increase the number of fires and will extend the fire season because human caused fires happen at any time, not just during seasonal lightning storms.
• Increasing roads on the landscape will increase the astronomical backlog of deferred road maintenance. According to a 2024 Forest Service fact sheet, 55% of the 10.8-billion-dollar deferred maintenance backlog is from deteriorating roads that extend 370,000 miles. That 5-billion-dollar backlog does not even include OHV trails or administrative roads.
• The Roadless Rule is very popular. When the Forest Service initiated the rulemaking process to rescind the Roadless Rule in August of 2025, it received 625,935 comments. Of those comments, 99% were opposed to rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. When the rule was originally developed, 1.6 million people commented, 90% supported roadless protections.