The U.S. Forest Service is looking to rescind a Clinton-era rule that established prohibitions on road construction and timber harvesting in tens of millions of acres of roadless public lands in 36 states.
In the Tuesday proposal, the agency dubbed the national 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule a “one-size-fits-all restriction that has frustrated land managers and served as a barrier to wildfire risk reduction work across large swaths of America’s national forests.”
The rule, created under former President Bill Clinton’s administration, was implemented to protect undeveloped national forest lands from new road building and commercial logging. It aimed to preserve wild ecosystems, safeguard clean drinking water and cut down on costly road maintenance and legal battles.
But Trump officials say it has hindered states’ ability to mitigate wildfires.
This rescission removes national designation of roadless areas but does not mandate timber cutting or road construction, the Forest Service said.
Today, the rule applies to nearly 45 million acres of National Forest System lands.
The move comes about two months after a Senate committee advanced an amendment introduced by Sen. Mike Lee, Utah Republican, that would have repealed the rule through the Wildfire Prevention Act. The amendment cleared the committee 11-9, but the full bill has not received a Senate floor vote.
In June 2025, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the intent to rescind it, dubbing it an “outdated administrative rule” that “contradicts the will of Congress and goes against the mandate of the USDA Forest Service to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands.”
“For too long, outdated restrictions have kept tens of millions of forested acres off-limits to the very treatments that improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk to our communities,” Ms. Rollins said in a statement.
She said the rule “tied the hands of local forest managers,” and by rescinding it, their authority would be restored.
The rescission is intended to prioritize local agency decision-making over broad, national regulatory rules, according to the Forest Service.
Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said this action is the “best way to restore the balance, reduce wildfire risk, and secure the long-term health of our forests and neighboring communities.”
“More than 40% of inventoried roadless areas, primarily in the West, have high or very high wildfire hazard potential,” he said. “And only 5% of those areas have received hazardous fuels reduction treatments since 2014. At the same time, more than a quarter of these lands—11.3 million acres—are already near existing roads.”
The GOP governors of Montana, Utah and Wyoming all praised the decision. More than 95% of inventoried roadless areas are in 10 Western states, which also includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington state.
A coalition of conservation groups called the plan an “alarming threat to national forests,” arguing that rescinding the rule would not reduce the risk of wildfires.
Josh Hicks, director of conservation campaigns at The Wilderness Society, said gutting the rule is “simply not an option” because communities, ecosystems, wildlife and local economies “depend on keeping these wild forests healthy and undisturbed.”
“Opening our backcountry forests to more roads and development, and therefore more ignitions, is also not a wildfire solution, and never will be,” he said in a statement. “The administration needs to hear us loud and clear: our roadless forests are some of the most important ecosystems across this country and must be managed as such.”
An analysis by the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation and advocacy organization, found that more than 99% of the comments submitted in response to the plan were opposed, using a sample taken near the close of the comment period.
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