Beartooth Range, Greater Yellowstone. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Brooke Rollins, Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture, recently announced the administration’s plan to repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule and open an estimated 58 million acres of public Forest Service land to road-building, resource extraction, and development.

The Roadless Rule resulted from extensive inventories of the nation’s remaining roadless public lands beginning in 1967 after the historic enactment of the Wilderness Act of 1964. The first Roadless Area Review and Evaluation was issued in 1972, which the courts found deficient, resulting in the 1977 RARE II inventory — but no action was taken to protect those roadless lands.

Finally, after extensive effort including an Environmental Impact Statement and the opportunity for nationwide public review and comment, the 2001 Roadless Rule was issued in the closing days of the Clinton administration.

Americans overwhelmingly approved the Roadless Rule with more than a million comments in support because they value the solitude, secure wildlife habitat, and pristine watersheds that unlogged and unroaded........

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