Cantwell, Gallego & Colleagues Urge Trump Administration To Extend Public Comment Period For Roadless Rule Repeal

Cantwell, Gallego & Colleagues Urge Trump Administration To Extend Public Comment Period For Roadless Rule Repeal

Trump's administration is pushing forward on plan to overturn protections on nearly 60 million acres of pristine National Forest lands, despite massive public pushback; In letter to the USFS and Ag leaders, lawmakers say 21 days is "simply not enough to provide the opportunity or meaningful participation"

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) led 54 of their Congressional colleagues in sending a letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Chief Tom Schultz urging them to extend the public comment period for a proposal to repeal the Roadless Rule.

The Roadless Rule, enacted in 2001, protects 58.5 million acres of untouched U.S. Forest Service land from wasteful new road construction. Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture published a notice in the Federal Register indicating that the Trump Administration intends to start an environmental review process to rescind the rule. The notice started the clock on a three-week public comment period, currently set to expire on Sept. 19.

"The Roadless Rule is a landmark public-lands rule that has ensured the responsible management of nearly 60 million acres of National Forest System land and the irreplaceable resources they provide since its inception," the lawmakers wrote.

"Its repeal represents a major shift in the longstanding management of lands in virtually all federal forests across the country - forests that our constituents care deeply about. This includes protections of over half of the 17 million-acre mature and old-growth Tongass National Forest in Alaska - America's largest forest and last remaining temperate rainforest - which offers critical opportunities for Tribal subsistence, tourism, outdoor recreation, and carbon sequestration. Twenty-one days is simply not enough to provide the opportunity for meaningful participation that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires."

The letter urges the Rollins and Schultz to "provide a minimum of 45 days for the public to comment and participate in public hearings, and 120 days for Tribal consultation."

The full letter text and list of cosigners is available HERE.

In June, Sen. Cantwell and Sen. Gallego led a group of their colleagues in a renewed push to enshrine the Roadless Rule protections into law through the Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2025.

The Roadless Rule enjoys strong public support, as evidenced by the overwhelming majority of 2.5 million comments submitted on the Roadless Forest Protection Rule -more than 95%-were in support of protecting roadless areas. A March 2019 poll by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that three out of four respondents said they supported keeping roadless forest protections, while only 16% opposed it. That level of support changed little between respondents living in rural or non-rural areas and across party affiliation and political views.

For more than two decades, the Roadless Rule has prevailed over numerous court challenges and administrative and legislative attacks. The first Trump administration weakened the rule, and in October 2020 the administration removed roadless protections for over 9 million acres of pristine forest lands in the Tongass National Forest, threatening old-growth forest and southeast Alaska's robust tourism and fishing economies. Under the Biden administration, the protections in the Tongass were restored but then removed again by the second Trump administration. In April, the Trump administration enacted a sweeping rollback of environmental protections across nearly 60% of U.S. national forests, including about 26 million acres of previously protected Roadless areas. This policy shift was formalized through an emergency directive by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, following a presidential executive order aimed at expediting logging projects by streamlining permitting, removing National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements, and exempting affected forests from administrative objection processes that previously allowed for challenges by environmental groups, tribes, and local government.

By codifying the rule into law-including in the Tongass-the Roadless Area Conservation Act would uphold recreational access to public lands, preserve the habitats of 1,600 at-risk species, reduce the risk of wildfires, aid in the fight against climate change by preserving vast carbon sinks, and safeguard watersheds that provide clean drinking water for more than 60 million Americans in 39 states and more than 350 communities across the United States. The legislation would maintain the flexibility engrained in the Roadless Rule which allows for continued forest management and the construction of roads as needed to address fires, floods, or other catastrophic events, and other circumstances like the need to build new road connections between remote communities.

The Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2025 would:

• Protect, in perpetuity, 58.5 million acres of roadless national forest in 39 states;
• Ensure the more than 240 million people living within 100 miles of a national forest or national grassland retain access to opportunities for outdoor recreation, including hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, mountain biking, and backcountry skiing;
• Safeguard watersheds in national forests and roadless areas that provide clean drinking water for over 60 million Americans;
• Save taxpayers millions of dollars by limiting costly new road building, allow the Forest Service to focus on maintaining its existing 371,581-mile network of National Forest System roads, and reduce its multi-billion dollar backlog of deferred maintenance on its existing road system;
• Maintain exemptions for hydropower development, public safety, and firefighting needs;
• Uphold the 9th and 10th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals decisions, as well as a decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in support of the Roadless Rule.

Sen. Cantwell has been the lead Senate champion of the Roadless Rule since it was overturned by the Bush Administration in 2001. Sen. Cantwell has repeatedly introduced legislation to codify the Roadless Rule into law, including as early as 2001. Sen. Cantwell was also a vociferous and persistent critic of the Trump administration's elimination of roadless protections for the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

Sen. Gallego has been a leader on restoring the Roadless Rule since his time in the House of Representatives, where he first introduced the Roadless Area Conservation Act in 2019.