Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said on Monday that the Department of Agriculture (USDA) is rescinding a 2001 rule designed to protect national forest lands from logging and road construction.
The USDA said in a statement that the roadless area rule, enacted during President Bill Clinton’s administration, was “overly restrictive” and affects about 30 percent of federal forest lands.
The rule has restricted road development on nearly 60 percent of forest lands in Utah and Montana, while in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest—the largest national forest—about 92 percent of the land is impacted, the USDA said.
Rescinding the rule would open nearly 59 million acres of federal forest lands to timber production and wildfire prevention efforts, according to the department. It stated that 28 million acres of those lands are at high risk for wildfires….