10/08/2026
That’s what I’m talking about!!
Before the U.S. Forest Service adopted the Roadless Area Conservation Rule—more commonly known simply as the Roadless Rule—in January 2001, it did so after a prolonged and in-depth public consultation process.
The rule was implemented as the result of three full years of policy development during the Clinton administration, which included a year of formal rulemaking, as well as extensive public participation.
There were 617 public meetings—literally every single national forest and grassland held at least two meetings—and more than 1.6 million public comments were received across roughly fifteen months. Depending on the source, 90% to 97% of those were in favor of creating the rule.
Now, as we all know, the Trump administration is planning on rescinding the Roadless Rule in its entirety (primarily to open up Alaska's Tongass National Forest to industrial logging).
During this process, which has been significantly shorter and involved zero public meetings, Americans once again submitted over 1.6 million public comments. That's insanely impressive. It's arguably the most intense outpouring of public participation in federal rulemaking in the nation's history.
This time, more than 99% of comments were against rescinding the rule. That's near-unversal opposition. Support now is even higher than when it was created. Why? Because the Roadless Rule works. It benefits outdoorsy people, wildlife, and water alike.
Yet, despite almost unanimous support for the Roadless Rule, I fully expect Trump's Forest Service to rescind it anyway.
And they can do that. The Roadless Rule is just a federal rule. It's not a law.
And that’s where the future of our Roadless Area lies: firmly embedded in and protected by federal law—codified in a bill passed by Congress.
Even if the Trump administration moves forward with rescission, a future Congress could still permanently protect these public lands with a pro-conservation bill.
And that’s why we so desperately need a pro-conservation, pro-environment, pro-wildlife, and pro-public lands majority in both the House and the Senate.
The midterms are less than four weeks away.
You know what to do.
Read the full story here: https://ourpubliclandsandwaters.substack.com/p/americans-leave-16-million-public
