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The Roadless Area Conservation Rule

In Brief: In late May, 2009, the Obama administratiion announced that it will observe a "time out" with respect to road building and logging on roadless areas of the national parks, as urged by the conservation community. As a candidate, Senator Obama had pledged to protect roadless areas, and as president he has made good on that pledge. We now have a chance to preserve nearly 60 million acres of wild lands for future generations.

Although most forestland in the US is in private ownership, most of the few remaining stands of virgin forest are on public lands. More than half of the lands within the national forest system, lands owned by all Americans, have already been subjected to development, such as road building, logging, and mining. Road building in the national forests has fundamentally altered their ability to provide clean drinking water and recreation opportunities and support native wildlife and ecosystems.

Not only do roads increase erosion and disrupt wildlife habitat, they also open up remote areas to further development. Once a road has been cut through an untouched area, the federal agencies that manage that land cannot consider recommending that area for wilderness designation by Congress. One of the most effective ways to protect a pristine forest, and its wildlife, is to keep the roads out.

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule as promulgated in January 2001 protected the last remaining one-third of unspoiled national forest land from commercial logging, road construction, and other damaging activities. The Forest Service issued the rule to protect 58.5 million acres of forestland after a three-year administrative process that involved more than 600 public meetings and drew a record-breaking 1.6 million public comments. In a second round, another half-million comments favoring the Roadless Rule were logged.

The Bush administration refused to defend the rule in a series of court cases. Further, it settled a case brought by the state of Alaska that resulted in the removal of the Tongass National Forest from the rule's protections. In May 2005,the administration announced that it had repealed the rule and was replacing it with a state-by-state petition process. Under this new rule, individual governors were invited to file petitions by November 2006, petitions suggesting modifications to the management of roadless areas in their states -- with no guarantee that the Forest Service would approve the petitions. Five states (North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, New Mexico, and California) filed petitions. All those petitions called for protection of all roadless areas in those states.

Meanwhile, the new rule was challenged in court by four states (two more filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support) and by a broad range of environmental organizations represented by Earthjustice. On September 20, 2006, a federal district court ruled that the substitite rule was illegal and that the original rule must be reinstated. The court found that in repealing the roadless rule, the Bush administration failed to comply with basic legal requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. Furthermore, on November 29, 2006, the court ordered the Forest Service to stop work on 84 oil and gas projects and an Idaho road project that had been approved during the five years that the roadless rule was illegally repealed.

The Forest Service appealed the September 2006 ruling; the appeals court has yet to rule. The state of Wyoming filed a new case in Cheyenne, and the judge there reimposed an injunction he originally issued in 2003. That case is on appeal as well.

As the cases make their way through the labyrinthine legal process, Earthjustice and other organizations are urging President Obama, Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, and members of the Senate and the House of Representatives to short-circuit the process and enact the Roadless Area Conservation Act into law.

With the May 28, 2009 announcement from the Obama administration, the litigation pending in several courts may take a stark change in direction if the government posture changes and its defense of the 2001 Roadless Rule becomes vigorous and staunch. The struggle is not over, but the tide is now flowing strongly in the right direction.