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A Trump administration proposal to rescind a bedrock conservation rule that protects 45 million acres of pristine national forests and the nation’s least-developed public lands from logging, road construction, development, and pollution is facing widespread opposition. Despite federal regulators providing an unusually brief time window for public comment, hundreds of thousands of comments were filed, with one analysis showing a near-unanimous desire to keep the rule in place.
The Roadless Area Conservation Rule, also known as the Roadless Rule, prohibits road construction and timber harvests in many of the remaining wilderness areas that standard cars and trucks cannot reach, effectively preventing mining, hydrocarbon extraction, and logging in those areas and limiting the human footprint in pristine ecosystems. Conservation groups say the rule is critical for preserving sources of clean drinking water, wildlife migration corridors, and access to large areas of unfragmented backcountry cherished by outdoors enthusiasts.
“Roadless Areas are not just scenic backcountry — they are biodiversity strongholds and fire-adapted ecosystems that rely on natural, mixed-severity fire to thrive,” said Jennifer Mamola, advocacy and policy director at the John Muir Project, a forest science think tank, in an email.
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The potential repeal of the Roadless Rule would add to a long list of environmental protections slashed under President Donald Trump. In March, Trump ordered the Forest Service and other agencies to bypass the Endangered Species Act and promote an “immediate expansion” of timber production on federal lands as part of a broader push to empower favored industries. The Trump administration argues the Roadless Rule is a needless regulation that frustrates local land managers, stifles “jobs and economic growth” in rural communities, and limits access for wildfire prevention efforts such as fuel management — which Trump has called “cleaning the floors” — a claim Mamola said contradicts studies linking roadbuilding to an increase in human-caused fires.
“Weakening protections puts both wildlife and the integrity of these landscapes at risk, while doing nothing to make our communities safer,” Mamola said.
Big timber and paper companies that would profit from greater access to old-growth forests in Alaska and the Western U.S. tend to support more Republican than Democratic candidates and spend millions of dollars a year lobbying Congress, according to OpenSecrets. Trump was the industry’s top recipient of campaign cash in 2024, followed by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Arkansas).
The rule was enacted in 2001 after the Forest Service collaborated with multiple federal agencies to hold hundreds of public hearings as well as consultations with Native American tribes across the Western United States over a two-year period. At the time, 1.6 million public comments poured in,