Congressmen call for comments in final Roadless Rule fight
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) During a press conference Wednesday outside the U.S. Capitol, six Congressional representatives joined public land advocates to call on American citizens to oppose the anticipated repeal of the Forest Service Roadless Rule, which the Trump administration is expected to publish soon.
Among the group were two Montanans who made the trip to Washington, D.C., to highlight two reasons Montana needs to retain its 6.4 million acres of roadless areas: wildlife preservation and the outdoor economy.
Retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear biologist Chris Servheen said wildlife, such as elk, grizzly bears and many other species, depend on roadless area protections to keep their habitat intact and give them more of a buffer from human destruction. Both elk and grizzly bears avoid roads, so the more roads crisscross the forest, the smaller their habitat becomes and the harder it is for them to migrate.
Up to 90% of grizzly bears die because of humans, through vehicle collisions, poaching or agency management actions. Roads allow people to invade grizzly bear habitat, allowing the less scrupulous ones to shoot grizzly bears, Servheen said. So roads are a direct source of fatality.
“There are more than 13,000 square miles of habitat within grizzly bear range that are in roadless areas. If the Roadless rule is rescinded and those areas are roaded, then bear numbers in those areas will decline, and we’ll see gradual reductions in bears in the Northern Rockies,” Servheen said. “Withdrawing or invalidating the Roadless Rule will invalidate the U.S. Forest Service commitment to maintain secure habitat for grizzly bears if they are ever delisted from the Endangered Species Act. Therefore rescinding the Roadless Rule will prevent grizzly bears from ever being delisted.”
Marne Hayes of Business for Montana’s Outdoors explained how important outdoor businesses are to Montana’s economy and how necessary roadless areas are to those businesses. Echoing Servheen, Hayes said roadless areas preserve big game habitat and are the source of Montana’s cold, clean streams that harbor trout populations.
Those are key to Montana’s $3.4 billion outdoor industry, which accounts for 5% of Montana’s gross domestic product. Only Alaska and Hawaii have bigger outdoor industries.
“Ask any outfitting business the most valuable asset to their growing clientele or ask a mainstream industry about one of their strongest recruitment advantages for seeking talent and they will all likely have the same answer: The places on our landscapes in the backcountry and on our protected waters and trails that lie within Montana’s coveted roadless areas,” Hayes said. “We’re here to tell you that we believe that roadless areas are indeed of economic importance.”
In June 2025, Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins proposed rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule, which protects water, wildlife and ecosystems in existing roadless areas by prohibiting road construction and most resource extraction. The U.S. Forest Service held no public meetings, but during a 21-day public comment period in September, almost 656,000 people commented, and more than 99% opposed the rule’s repeal, according to a Center for Western Priorities analysis of around a third of the comments.
In spite of the opposition, politicians expect that Rollins will soon finalize the repeal but that should be followed by one more comment period. So members of the Public Lands Caucus encouraged people to comment against the repeal that would open more than 58 million acres of forest to industry and expensive road-building.
Pointing to the recently announced Forest Service reorganization and the president’s budget proposal that would cut Forest Service funding by 75%, Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif, said rescinding the Roadless Rule is just another part of the Trump administration’s scheme to sell public land.
“The American people are with us on this. They are against these reckless environmental policies,” Huffman said. “The administration has taken every opportunity to hide its decision making from the public. Their agenda is very clear: they’re trying to cut out the voices of everyday Americans in the decisions they’re making about our public lands.”
New Mexico was well represented at the event with all three of its representatives taking stand in opposition of the Roadless Rule repeal. They were joined by Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Ore., who helped introduce the Roadless Area Conservation Act in July in an effort to turn the Roadless Rule into law.
“We are not seeing an open and honest process from this administration. In the coming days, we anticipate the final comment period of this rollback. The final opportunity for Americans to make their voices heard, and the final opportunity for this administration to hear us and change course. While I’m hopeful we can still make a difference, I fear this administration continues to prioritize extractive industry over the concerns of millions of Americans who care about and rely on these lands,” Salinas said.
Neither of Montana’s Congressmen were present at Wednesday’s event. In June 2025, Reps. Ryan Zinke and Troy Downing both cheered Rollin’s proposal to rescind the Roadless Rule. In a post on X, Downing called it “long overdue.” In a Congressional Western Caucus statement, Zinke called it “a victory” saying, “If you can’t build a road, you can't fight fires, you can't cut trees, and you can't properly take care of our national heritage held in our public lands.”
Wildland firefighter Carson States said Wednesday that more roads create more fires because people start the vast majority of wildfires, and 78% are sparked within a half-mile of a road. So the more roads that are built deeper into the backcountry, the greater the risk of a human-caused fire.
“As roads expand into new areas, the number of potential ignition points expands with them. Over time, that translates into more starts. More starts mean more initial attacks. More initial attacks means more exposure for firefighters over the course of a season,” States said. “Roadless areas have fewer ignition sources to begin with and less human infrastructure at risk. Under the right conditions, fires can be used for natural fuels reduction rather than constantly reacting to new starts.”
“From where I stand, this is a firefighter safety issue,” States said.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.