Trump bid to repeal forest protections faces hurdles

Eliminating the “roadless rule” would carve back development limits on 58 million acres of national forests.

June 24, 2025

The Trump administration’s announcement Monday that it’s lifting timber-harvesting restrictions on more than 58 million acres of national forests is just the beginning of what’s likely to be a drawn-out fight.

Rescinding the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced at a meeting of Western governors, will require formal rulemaking and is sure to prompt legal challenges from environmental groups, said people who’ve worked on issues related to the regulations over the years.

And if the administration succeeds, then come the hurdles that confront any Forest Service logging project: limited staff capacity to prepare new timber sales, managing environmental reviews and navigating volatile timber markets that can make harvesting on public lands a money loser for taxpayers.

Forest projects on land formerly covered by the roadless-area rule would still be subject to the usual case-by-case reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, although the Trump administration has moved to make NEPA reviews quicker and less extensive overall.

The Forest Service faces workforce challenges in the coming years as well, having lost several thousand employees to deferred resignations and early retirement this year. The agency’s firings of probationary employees at the beginning of the Trump administration ensnared some people who work on timber sales or on jobs related to environmental reviews, for instance, although the USDA said some were later returned to their positions.

Challenges aside, supporters of the administration’s action on the roadless-area rule said it’s long overdue. The timber industry needs the help, they said, and a more active approach to managing federal forests would address overgrown conditions that can add fuel to wildfires.

“We need to remove the barriers, and there are multiple barriers,” said Scott Dane, executive director of the American Loggers Council, an industry group.

The roadless-area prohibitions, Dane told POLITICO’s E&E News, are “another cut of a thousand cuts” that have clobbered the U.S. timber industry in the last few decades. On national forests, timber sales have tumbled from around 12 billion board feet in the early 1990s to less than 4 billion board feet in recent years.

President Donald Trump has vowed through an executive order to increase the nation’s timber production by 25 percent and eliminate U.S. reliance on imports. The administration has also moved to allow more logging of old-growth forests, reversing a Biden administration initiative.

But some timber industry organizations have said the Forest Service doesn’t need to lift the roadless-area restrictions to boost output and manage forests for wildfire. That’s because most national forests don’t harvest nearly the allowable sale quantity already written into their forest plans.

Rulemakings and lawsuits

Rollins didn’t mention the process ahead, although a spokesperson for the Agriculture Department said her announcement is just a first step toward rescinding the rule. “The Department will issue formal notice on the rescission in the coming weeks,” the USDA said.

Timber isn’t the only industry affected, as the rule’s prohibition on roads prevents mining, hydropower and other development. The Forest Service from time to time has granted exceptions for some of those types of projects, as well as for wildfire mitigation.

Environmental groups said the administration’s move goes against public sentiment, given negative comments the Forest Service has received to past proposals to roll back such protections.

The original rule generated more public comment than any other rulemaking up to that point, according to Trout Unlimited, although Rollins said Monday that the regulations are outdated. The USDA didn’t say whether it would take public comment on rescinding the rule.

At Trout Unlimited, president and CEO Chris Wood — who helped craft the roadless-area rule as a Forest Service official — invoked the agency’s founding in calling on the administration to keep the development limits in place.

“Roadless areas are sources of clean water and some of the best hunting and fishing opportunities on the planet,” Wood said in a statement. “Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the Forest Service, once described conservation as ‘the application of common sense to common problems for the common good.’ Let’s hope common sense prevails and the Administration reconsiders its proposal.”

Earthjustice, the environmental group that’s previously defended the roadless-area rule in court, suggested it will take a similar path again.

“We will stand for America’s national forests and the wildlife that depend on them,” said Drew Caputo, Earthjustice’s vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife and oceans. “If the Trump administration actually revokes the roadless rule, we’ll see them in court.”

Impacts and Hill reaction

Nowhere does the roadless-area rule affect more forest than in Alaska, where a little more than 9 million of the Tongass National Forest’s 16.7 million acres are protected by the regulation. There, state officials say the rule has hobbled a once-thriving timber industry, while environmental and conservation groups say it’s critical to protecting the forest and related recreation.

But other regions could see previously protected areas opened up as well. In the South, Virginia has 394,000 designated acres and North Carolina has 172,000 acres, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center. Smaller amounts are protected in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina.

“Today’s announcement from USDA Secretary Rollins shows that this administration is completely out of touch with what Americans value in our public lands,” said Sam Evans, a lawyer in SELC’s national forests and parks program. “The Roadless Rule promises that our least-developed public lands can be enjoyed by all of us for generations to come without the threat of reckless roadbuilding and other destructive projects.”

In Congress, Republicans are generally lined up against roadless-area restrictions, while Democrats have called for strengthening them by writing the protections into law.

House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) in a statement called the administration’s move a “massive win” for restoring forest health and resiliency.

A Yale-trained forester, Westerman added, “It acknowledges that we cannot lock up our forests and throw away the key — we need to actively manage and conserve our forests for cleaner air and water, better wildlife habitat and safer communities.”

But the committee’s ranking Democrat, Jared Huffman of California, called the maneuver a “dangerous attack on our public lands.”

Huffman added, “Our national forests are not mere woodlots; they are invaluable natural treasures that safeguard clean water, preserve critical wildlife habitat, and provide essential spaces for recreation and solace.”


By:  Marc Heller
Source: Politico Greenwire