The Trump administration is determined to get rid of a 25-year-old regulation that helps protect about 59 million acres of public forest land from road construction, logging, and other forms of industrial development.
According to an announcement released this week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Forest Service, which is overseen by the USDA, has "filed a proposed rule to rescind in its entirety the national 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule."
That policy was adopted during Bill Clinton's presidency in 2001. Better known as the "roadless rule," it prevents the building of roads in 30% of national forests nationwide, according to the Associated Press, effectively blocking commercial logging and mineral leasing in those areas.
The purpose of the rule is to keep undeveloped public lands, pristine ecosystems, and clean water supplies, well, undeveloped, pristine, and clean.
But the policy has been, as NPR puts it, "a flashpoint in the U.S. fight over economic development and wild land conservation, especially in Western states, for a quarter of a century."
The Trump administration vs. undeveloped public lands
In summer 2025, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the Trump administration's intention to rescind the roadless rule and opened a brief public comment period.
Hundreds of thousands of comments poured in despite the blink-and-it's-over time window allowed, and 99% of commenters opposed the Trump administration's proposal, according to the Center for Western Priorities, a nonpartisan conservation group.
Nevertheless, this week's USDA announcement signals the roadless rule is closer than ever to going kaput.
In the statement, Rollins describes the rule as a "failed" and "outdated" regulation that has actually imperiled public lands by somehow keeping officials from stopping wildfires.
"Across the country, we’ve watched preventable conditions—overgrown stands, insect outbreaks, and disease—turn healthy landscapes into tinderboxes," Rollins argues in the government's statement.
So the answer is to . . . build roads to cut down the forests?
Impeccable logic. After all, we wouldn't have to worry about forest fires if there weren't any forests left to burn, now would we?
Never mind that many ecologists warn building roads is likely to increase the risk of fires.
As the New York Times points out, introducing roads in the wilderness means introducing more people, and almost 85% of wildfires start due to people-related things "like discarded cigarette butts, burning debris or sparks from equipment."
For an array of alarmed environmental groups—including Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Counsel (NRDC), and many others—the benefits of keeping the roadless rule range from saving endangered wildlife to maintaining clean drinking water for 25 million Americans, according to a statement from the NRDC.
Not to mention the life-enriching benefits that wilderness areas have for hikers, backcountry campers, rock climbers, fishers, and other lovers of the outdoors. Given that these are supposedly public lands, why do those members of the public get less of a say than politicians and extractive industries?
Less of a say doesn't mean zero say, though.
There's still time to make your voice heard
In fact, the 30-day public comment period on the proposal to rescind the roadless rule begins with the publication of the notice in the Federal Register on Thursday, Aug. 20, and lasts until midnight on Monday, Sept. 21.
During that period, you can submit your comments via the Regulations.gov portal.
GearJunkie, a source for outdoor news and gear reviews, has some excellent advice for posting an effective comment:
"Specific comments are more useful than copy-and-paste outrage," the site advises. "Name the national forest, drainage, hunting area, trail, fishery, climbing area, or roadless landscape you use. Explain how additional roads or development could affect your use of it. If wildfire and forest management are part of your concern, address those [issues] as well."
You can also contact your congressional representatives to tell them to make roadless rule protections a permanent part of federal law. There's already a bill that would do just that.
If preserving untouched public lands is important to you, don't wait until it's too late.