The Trump administration is rolling back a landmark conservation rule from the Clinton era that prevents roadbuilding and logging on roughly 58 million acres of federal forest and wildlands.
The announcement rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule comes as the Forest Service is under orders by President Trump to increase logging and thinning in forests to address the wildfire threat. Environmentalists have already indicated they'll sue to prevent its reversal, however.
After Clinton enacted the rule at the end of his term in 2001, it effectively created de facto wilderness protections for scores of forests in the West and Alaska.
Republican states and industry groups say Clinton usurped power reserved for Congress in the Wilderness Act. They have tried to overturn it for decades, filing more than a dozen unsuccessful lawsuits against it.
Speaking at a meeting of the Western Governors Association in New Mexico Monday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who oversees the Forest Service, said her agency will begin rescinding the rule. She added the move would align with a recent executive order to remove red tape to boost logging on federal land.
"This misguided rule prohibits the Forest Service from thinning and cutting trees to prevent wildfires and when fires start, the rule limits our firefighters' access to quickly put them out," Rollins said at a news conference.
Environmentalists counter that wildfires are more likely to occur in forests that have been developed with roads and other infrastructure.
In a statement, Drew Caputo, an attorney with the group Earthjustice, said the administration is handing over trees to industry instead of protecting national forests.
"If the Trump administration actually revokes the roadless rule, we'll see them in court," Caputo said.
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