The Roadless Area Conservation Rule was issued by the U.S. Forest Service in January 2001 to protect the last remaining wildlands in our national forest system. Hunters, fishermen, and conservation groups are among the millions of Americans who consider the Roadless Rule one of the greatest forest conservation measures in U.S. history. The administration repealed the Roadless Rule in 2005, immediately eliminating the prohibition of road construction, logging, mining and other harmful development provided to roadless areas by the original rule. But in September of 2006, a federal district court ordered reinstatement of the Clinton era Roadless Rule, to once again protect almost 50 million acres of wild national forests and grasslands from road building, logging, and development.

The reinstatement of the Roadless Rule was an important court victory, but until the rule is made the law of the land, roadless areas will continue to be under threat from politically influential mining, timber, and other extractive industries.

History of challenges to the Roadless Rule

President Clinton publicly unveiled the original Roadless Rule on January 5, 2001, after well over one million public comments supporting the rule were submitted to the Forest Service. After President Bush took office a few weeks later, the White House issued a directive postponing the effective date of the Roadless Rule.

On May 4, 2001, then Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth held a joint press conference in Washington, DC, to announce they believed in protecting "roadless values" and were going to allow the Roadless Area Conservation Rule adopted during the Clinton administration to go into effect on May 12 that year. They also said they would recommend minor changes to the rule in the future.

Meanwhile, their lawyers stood to one side and did not even object when a federal district court judge in Idaho to issue a preliminary injunction barring implementation of the rule two days before its new effective date.

The Bush administration did not appeal the Idaho court ruling either. Earthjustice did (on behalf of many environmental organizations) and successfully overturned the Idaho court's injunction before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2002. The rule was in force until July 2003, when a Wyoming district judge issued another injunction. Earthjustice again appealed, this time before the Tenth Circuit. This time, the administration not only failed to appeal, but also argued that citizens do not have the right to appeal when the Bush administration refused to do so.

Meanwhile, the administration was at work planning a rule intended to supplant the forest protections provided by the Roadless Rule. On May 13, 2005, the Bush administration showed the nation once and for all what this administration really meant when it said it wants to protect "roadless values" by formally announcing that it would repeal the Roadless Rule and eliminate roadless area protections. The administration then asked the 10th Circuit to dismiss the appeal of the Wyoming decision that was pending before it as moot, due to the administration’s new repeal of the rule. Since the Roadless Rule had been formally repealed, the 10th Circuit dismissed the appeal as moot on July 11th, 2005.

On October 6th, 2005, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit on behalf of 20 conservation groups in federal district court in San Francisco seeking to invalidate the Bush administration decision to target the last, large untouched tracts of our national forests for industrial development by repealing the Roadless Rule. The suit asked the court to reinstate the 2001 Roadless Rule that protected these areas. The states of California, New Mexico, and Oregon also filed a similar suit.

On September 20, 2006, we won! The court ordered reinstatement of the Clinton era roadless rule to protect almost 50 million acres of wild national forests and grasslands from road building, logging, and development. The court order is a stunning victory for all Americans who value America's great natural areas, and reverses the Bush administration efforts to open these last great natural areas to development interests.

Earthjustice's campaign to protect our last roadless forests spans all three branches of government.

We worked with 75 other national and local environmental groups to file a petition to the Bush administration calling for the reinstatement of the 2001 Roadless Rule, signed by 276,000 Americans. Thanks to the over 50,000 Earthjustice supporters who signed this important petition!

Then, in fantastic news for millions of Americans who have consistently told the Bush administration that they want these last wild areas of public land protected, in September of 2006, Earthjustice won a major court victory reinstating the Roadless Rule! This suit was filed on behalf of 20 conservation groups in federal district court in San Francisco.

However, in spite of this resounding victory, legal challenges to the rule are expected to continue. We need Congress to enact the Roadless Rule into law in order to protect our last wild forests once and for all. So now, the fight is turning also to Congress -- the branch of government that is tasked with directly representing you.

The Roadless Area Conservation Act

This This proposed bill would make the Roadless Rule law, immediately protecting 58.5 million acres of untouched national forests from logging, mining, and energy development projects.

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) has introduced the Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2007 (S. 1478) to codify the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, and protect 58.5 million acres of untouched national forests. Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA) has introduced a companion bill, the National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act (H.R. 2516) in the House.

"Punching roads through America’s last remaining untouched forests to subsidize short-term logging, mining, and energy development projects is unfair to future generations," said Cantwell, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "Americans don’t want to see their hunting, fishing, and hiking areas turned into a reckless patchwork of road-building, logging, and mining."

Read the text of this important bill (S. 1478). See if your senators or see if your representative is supporting this legislation. We will continue to build support for codifying the Roadless Rule into law throughout the 110th Congress, and keep the pressure on the Bush administration to listen to the American people and keep our nation's last wild forests wild.

Citizens petition the administration to restore the Roadless Rule!

In 2005 and 2006, Earthjustice, concerned citizens, and conservation groups throughout the country joined together to file an official petition with the Bush administration to demand the reinstatement of the 2001 rule. On March 2, 2006, the conservation community presented this petition to President Bush and the Department of Agriculture, with over 265,000 total signatures. In an unprecedented move, over 100 current and former Olympians signed the peition.

Photo by Galen Rowell / Mountain Light

The petition states that:

America's last roadless National Forests belong to all Americans; and
All of our remaining roadless areas should be protected, completely and permanently, through the reinstatement of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule of 2001.

Almost 55,000 Earthjustice supporters stepped up and signed our "Restore the Roadless Rule" petition, making this the most online signatures we have ever gathered. Thank you to everyone who too part -- we could not have done it without you.