Coalition seeks 1M comments supporting roadless rule

Presenter: A coalition is hoping to collect 1 million comments in support of the roadless rule. Speaking to The Great Old Broads For Wilderness on Aug. 27, Chandra LeGue:

Chandra LeGue: I’m Chandra. I am the co-leader of the Willamette Valley broadband in Oregon, and I also work for Oregon Wild, which is a statewide advocacy organization.

I’m going to start with a quick reminder about what the roadless rule is. So this is a rule, a policy that protected 58 million acres of inventoried roadless areas across the country back in 2001.

These roadless areas are found in 38 states and 9 million of those are in Alaska in the Tongass National Forest. So we’re talking about national forests only, not BLM or any state lands that this applies to.

And the rule prohibited all new road building and reconstruction, and prohibited commercial logging and extraction in these inventoried areas. And it’s not as strict as the Wilderness Act. So you can still have motorized equipment, mountain bikes, OHVs, chainsaws, that sort of thing in roadless areas.

I also want to call attention to the fact that this is a rule. It’s a policy. It is not a law, which means that it can be changed by an administration or agency and Congress doesn’t get a say in making this rule. That will come into play later when we talk about what we can do about this. 

So the roadless rule was made under the Clinton administration and had extensive public engagement through hundreds of hearings and several comment periods before it was enacted.

The resource extraction industries and friendly elected officials to them have never liked the roadless rule as a nationwide policy. And so they’ve worked to get rid of it in various ways over the past 25 years. 

For example, in Trump’s first term, that administration attempted to exempt the Tongass National Forest in Alaska from the rule. But then the Biden administration reapplied it. There’s been lots of this stuff that’s gone on over the last 25 years.

But last year, the Trump administration announced its intent to rescind the roadless rule entirely. And we had a 21-day comment period on that proposal a year ago. That period led to 600,000 public comments, with 99% opposing the scrapping of the roadless rule. When was the last time 99% of Americans agreed on anything? Right?

So the next phase of this process began last week with the release of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement and proposed rule with a 30-day comment period. 

So that’s where we are right now. That comment period ends Sept. 21. And then a final decision could happen sometime next year.

But that’s likely not going to be the end of the story because there will be lots of people fighting, litigating, etc. to keep this rule in place. 

So also I want to remind us of how we got here. We have the roadless rule because it was predated by decades of rampant extraction and fragmentation through logging and roadbuilding, primarily.

The roadless rule helped cause that to maintain much of the wild habitat, clean water and backcountry recreation and intact forests that we had left.

So what came out last week is concerning, and we stand to lose a lot. So what was proposed, in this next stage is the proposed rule would rescind the roadless rule entirely. So right now that includes about 45 million acres of roadless areas.

I know I said 58 (million) earlier, and that’s because Colorado and Idaho now have their own roadless rules for their states. So there’s almost 45 million acres of roadless areas that would be opened up for roadbuilding, commercial logging, and other development under this proposed rule.

There is a third alternative to this draft environmental impact statement, Alternative 3. But it’s also terrible. It’s essentially doing the same thing. It rescinds the roadless rule across 31.7 million acres. They’re defining or they’re getting rid of roadless areas that are within a half a mile of an existing road.

And it rescinds the roadless rule for the Tongass National Forest. So all 9 million acres of that temperate rainforest would lose protections under the roadless rule.

So, you know, essentially it’s giving the 1% what they want. The 99% of the public comments that supported protections for this rule are not getting what they want out of this. So we’re talking about the timber and mining industries, those who push for more motorized use on public lands.

And unfortunately, what they’re pushing for is not just the repeal of the roadless area protections. This move goes along with the many executive orders that are mandating extraction on public lands, legislative proposals that back those up, and administrative moves to weaken environmental laws and cut the public out of decision-making.

It’s a lot of fun stuff. and, you know, while big industry and billionaires stand to win, everybody and everything else stands to lose. So much of what we value about public lands is made better by protecting roadless areas. The difference between roaded areas and roadless areas is vast, as far as the ecosystems and human communities that these places support.

So what are the impacts of the repeal on the things that we value, that we care about? Well, it’s going to imperil wildlife. It would adversely affect over 300 threatened and endangered species and their critical habitat. It admits that water quality would be threatened through more roads. and the sediment that gets dumped into waterways, it will inhibit native biodiversity through invasive plant spread.

It undermines tribal rights and interests. It flat out admits that through the comment process and consultation, the majority of tribal sentiment is that they want to keep the roadless rule and that it benefits their interests. So this is flying directly in the face of what tribes want. 

The proposed repeal also states that the Forest Service could build new roads in about 45% of current roadless areas in the short term.

And we don’t need the problems that come with those roads. That’s why the roadless rule was developed in the first place. So national forests already have 380,000 miles of roads, and there’s a $7 billion maintenance backlog.

Recreation will be harmed. The roadless rule protects thousands of miles of trails and other backcountry rivers that we all love to experience when we’re out on public lands. So, the repeal of the rule will impact many of our favorite places and lead to a huge economic loss.

The analysis states that removing the roadless rule will result in a loss of $9 million in annual visitor spending. But if you look at the bigger picture of how much outdoor recreation contributes to local economies, I think it’s probably much bigger than that.

And finally, a lot of this is couched around the need to reduce wildfire risk. And I’m going to turn it over to Tim Ingalsbee with FUSEE to talk a little bit more about that.

Tim Ingalsbee: All right. Thank you, Chandra, and thank you for the Great Old Broads For Wilderness for hosting me.

I just want to talk briefly about strategy here. For the last year since this proposal came out, the apparent—or alleged—rationale is to reduce wildfire risks, aid wildfire prevention and suppression, make it safer and more efficient for wildland firefighters to go out there and aggressively attack wildfires.

And that is what we have been preparing for, rallying firefighters to speak out against. And what we got with the draft EIS is, ‘Oh, no, no, this is really about local control, not about fire control.’ 

Well, that’s what they say in the Draft EIS. Meanwhile, most of the public messaging is still trying to stoke the public’s fear of wildfires and, you know, this is about fires.

So whether this whole scam is about local control (which I think they’re trying to get past some right-wing red-state judge who might align with those arguments.) Or is it about fire control and make it safer, more efficient for firefighters?

The reality is it’s all about corporate control and basically handing over public wildlands to the resource extraction industry.

So let’s talk about fire risks, because that is the continuing messaging. I actually encourage people to address those wildfire-related issues, even if they kind of agree that they don’t hold much water.

There’s two ways to define risk. One is probability of some bad event happening, and the other is, what are the consequences of that event happening.

So with fire risks, hands down, the science is clear: The vast majority of wildfires are started by human beings, and the vast majority of those human caused wildfires ignite nearby roads.

So punching in new roads into an eroded or roadless areas is going to increase the number of human-caused ignitions.

So you can’t claim that this is going to make it safer for firefighters when you’re increasing their burdens. And every each and every wildfire suppression incident puts crews at risk. There’s just inherent hazards.

So building new roads, I should say, carving new roads into roadless areas, this is not about, you know, firefighters racing to flames on paved roads with big engines to hook up into fire hydrants.

These roads are hazardous in themselves. So the risk measured in probability is going to soar with a number of wildfires that will increase with new roads and roadless areas.

And then what are the consequences of wildfires in roadless areas? Well, there again, the science is pretty clear that these roadless areas are the most resilient, naturally resilient to wildfires because they’ve had less roads, less logging, less resource extraction, and less aggressive fire suppression.

So even though wildfires may be big in roadless areas because we can’t drive to them, well, they actually are more resilient and, typically not as severe. And these are actually the areas where firefighters can manage them for more ecological benefits.

Chandra’s already talked about the road maintenance issue. $7, $8, $12 billion backlog. Again, these are not about paved roads. These are gravel roads carved into steep mountain slopes. And just the dust that kicks up makes them extremely hazardous.

They often border a cliff. They’re rutted, washboard-rutted. They’re littered with rolling rocks and logs lined with flammable fuels like invasive weeds, grasses, shrubs, I mean, they’re cut across the mid-slope of mountains, really a very bad place for firefighters to stage and try to stop fires.

You’re facing hazards of stuff rolling down on top of you or racing up from below. These roads were built to haul timber, not halt fires, okay? That’s what they’re really about. It’s about resource extraction, not fire suppression. It’s about getting the cut out, not putting the fire out.

So this false promise, phony claim that we need to carve new roads into roadless areas for the sake of wildland firefighter safety and efficiency is just bunk. And we just have a simple slogan: ‘Not in our name, you don’t.’

Presenter: That is Tim Ingalsbee with Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology (FUSEE). He was asked how wildland firefighters are feeling right now. 

Tim Ingalsbee: The crews are overwhelmed right now. We are getting our butts kicked, just trying to protect homes and communities in landscapes that are already heavily eroded, heavily logged, and to now go into another 45 million acres of some of the most remote, rugged, steep, hazardous terrain to do aggressive, mechanized, militarized firefighting— it’s overwhelming.

And, you know, unfortunately, this comment period is strategically designed to exclude firefighters from participating in the comment process. So that’s something to consider— the stakeholders with the most at stake in roadless conservation rule on behalf of wildfire— our firefighters, whose lives and limbs and lungs are on the line every time they go out to fight a fire.

So thank you so much for that question. 

Presenter: Oregon Wild’s Chandra LeGue:

Chandra LeGue: All right. So what are we going to do about all this? Great Old Broads is part of a huge nationwide coalition working to ensure the roadless rule stays in place. So now it’s go time. and it’s time to get on the record and work to protect everything we treasure about these wild landscapes.

So how do we do that? Well, we write comments. I know that it can feel a little hopeless to speak out to this administration. And in this case, you know, the agency—the Forest Service, you know, making this decision—don’t have to listen to what the majority wants. Clearly, 99% of us already said we didn’t want this and they’re moving forward.

But it is really important that we do get on the record here. The roadless coalition that we’re working with is aiming for 1 million comments. And that’s a strong number that we can demonstrate to legislators (who are subject to majority vote) that people support this protection and then we can also use those strong numbers, in the media, etc..

And it’s important to have strong substantive comments on the record, for what will probably be litigation, by any number of groups, if this moves forward. So, there are important reasons to get on the record here.

There’s also a lot of ways to submit comments, with the aid of organizations like Great Old Broads, any number of organizations in your area that you might be following and that are a part of the roadless coalition are, you know, sending out alerts and encouraging people to comment. And have their own tools for helping you do so.

So any of those are great. In order to be counted in an analysis, because it’s on the public record, it’s important too that these go through regulations.gov and it’s best if they’re personalized and not just like signing a petition. so the Great Old Broads portal for this will get you counted in the right way.

And then the other important thing is that these have to be on time. Sept. 21 is when this comment period ends, unless an extension comes about. 

Presenter: Chandra recommended a specific tool that can help you personalize your message of support for the roadless rule. 

Chandra LeGue: In association with the Sierra Club, More Than Just Parks created an amazing roadless rule tool. It’s got this interactive map, it’s got tons of background, and it has a unique comment generator that can generate good substantive comments that are unique.

And then, it helps you go to the official website and submit those, which is pretty cool, and basically what it’s helping you to do—what any of these comment generators are helping you to do—is to create a unique comment.

And that’s really just about putting in, why you care about these places and this issue, how you might be impacted or areas, you know, or that you love are impacted.

You can use any number of talking points that we’ll share with you. And you just want to state clearly that you want the agency to retain the roadless rule. And that’s about all there is to it. You don’t have to be an expert in anything.

When you go to the regulations.gov website it’s really quite simple to submit a comment. You just need to cut and paste into the place that says ‘Comment.’ That’s pretty much it.

Or you can upload a PDF and you want to make sure that you’re clicking that you’re an individual, you’re not representing an organization, even if you’re a member of those organizations, and then you can enter your contact info so that the government can let you know about the next steps.

You can also contact your legislators, letting them know that public lands and protections for the roadless areas are important to you and it’s really important. they might take some action. 

There’s currently a letter circulating to all members of Congress opposing the roadless rule repeal and asking for a comment period extension. As of this morning, there’s, I think, almost 90 members of Congress on that letter, that will go to the Forest Service. So, that’s great news. 

And then there’s also pending legislation called the Roadless Area Conservation Act that would essentially make the roadless rule a law so that it will be harder to change in future administrations.

So you can ask your legislators to support that or thank them if they’re already a sponsor. And then finally, we need people to know about this effort so that as many people as possible speak up for these public lands. 

So, a few good ways you can spread the word is by submitting letters to the editor in your local paper. Even if it’s an online source, that’s totally fine. These are usually short and they can just look like a comment that you send to the Forest Service, expressing, you know, your values and what you want to see.

You can also share on social media if you’re on there, that can mean making your own posts—maybe after you’ve gone out on a hike to a roadless area. 

Or you can just like, share, or comment on others (posts) that are talking about the roadless rule and that will help amplify their reach.

And then finally, you know, get out there, share some of these roadless areas with a friend and encourage them to write comments, once they’re inspired by the area.

Presenter: Chandra was asked what people can do to get the Roadless Area Conservation Act reintroduced in Congress.

Chandra LeGue: As folks are aware, we’ve got an election coming up and Congress isn’t going to be passing especially good legislation in the next couple of months.

So yeah, I think, looking ahead to reintroduction of protective bills for public lands in the next session will be really important. And it really does have to come from the public, keeping this issue in our legislators’ eyes.

So, you know, if they keep hearing, ‘We want roadless area protections, please push back against what this administration is doing and please promote this legislation,’ then they’ll be more likely to do it.

So, yes, there was both a Senate and a House version introduced this past year. Those can both be reintroduced, coming up with enough public support. 

Presenter: A nationwide coalition hopes to get 1 million comments to preserve the roadless rule. You can learn more at OregonWild.org.