Two USFS rule changes favor more motor vehicle access
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) The Trump administration is proposing a rule change that would allow motorized vehicles on all Forest Service roads unless roads are specifically closed to traffic.
On Friday, the U.S. Forest Service announced it intends to amend the Travel Plan Rule and would be preparing an environmental impact statement to analyze what will happen when it opens more roads and trails motorized and mechanized access across the national forests. Comments on the preliminary proposal are being accepted until Sept. 23.
The Forest Service announcement said the Travel Plan amendment is in keeping with a May 29 Presidential Executive Order Removing Unnecessary and Counterproductive Restrictions on Access to Federal Lands, which rescinds two previous executive orders from the 1970s that limited off-road vehicle use on federal lands.
Executive Order 11644, issued by President Richard Nixon in 1972, said federal land agencies had to develop regulations to evaluate where off-road vehicles were allowed based upon “minimization criteria.” Those criteria sought to minimize vehicle damage to soils, vegetation, water, and wildlife and wildlife habitat. Regulations were also required to minimize conflict between off-road vehicles and other public uses.
In popular off-road areas, high use can create lasting environmental damage. As a result, President Jimmy Carter signed Executive Order 11989 in 1977 to allow agencies to immediately close areas to off-road vehicles if such damage was occurring.
Nixon’s and Carter’s orders provided the framework that agencies use to develop travel management plans on national forests and Bureau of Land Management areas, although it took more than 25 years for the travel management rule to be finalized under the George W. Bush administration. Travel management plans seek to balance public access with conservation by identifying which roads, trails and areas can be open to vehicles and which are closed to protect natural resources, wildlife habitats, and cultural sites.
Eliminating those two executive orders sets the stage for opening up more than 380,000 miles of road and 165,000 miles of trails across Forest Service land to motorized and mechanized use, which includes trucks, RV’s, off-road vehicles and e-bikes. Individual forests keep the authority to decide what stays open, although closing roads would run counter to Trump’s executive order.
”Public lands are for public use. Yet, for too long, Forest Service regulations have stood in the way of public recreation access,” said Stephen A. Vaden, U.S. Department of Agriculture deputy secretary in a press release. “With this step, USDA begins the process of ensuring the public can access their forests, and USDA can better manage the lands with which the public has entrusted it.”
The announcement follows on the heels of last week’s announcement that Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins intends to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule, in spite of an overwhelming majority of public comments opposing her decision. Rollins used this summer’s wildfires to justify her decision. She is taking more public comment until Sept. 21 although, based on the last go-around, it's questionable that comments will change anything.
“For too long, outdated restrictions have kept tens of millions of forested acres off-limits to the very treatments that improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk to our communities. Today, we filed a proposal to restore authority to local forest managers who know the land best, removing the barriers that have kept them from doing the work the land demands. It’s time to turn the page on the failed roadless rule and return our forests to health and productivity,” Rollins said in a release Tuesday.
The 2001 Roadless Rule prohibits road construction and large logging projects that would require new roads in order to provide protection for wildlife and ecosystems in inventoried roadless areas that remain.
The Forest Service proposed the rule in 2000 partly to stem the growing backlog of costs associated with maintaining more than 386,000 miles of roads across the national forest system. During more than 600 public hearings nationwide, the public provided more than 1.6 million comments in favor of adopting the rule.
Montana has almost 6.4 million acres of inventoried roadless areas, according to a U.S. Forest Service summary. Only two other states have more: Idaho with 9.3 million acres and Alaska with 14.7 million. All three states also have the most abundant and varied fish and wildlife populations.
And the Roadless Rule doesn’t prohibit logging completely. It just puts a few more requirements on the logging and burning that’s conducted in roadless areas, said Brian Riggers, retired Forest Service Roadless Coordinator and fisheries biologist, in February.
“When you say roadless areas, some people think we can’t do anything in those areas. The Roadless Rule was established to limit or restrict new roads in these areas that don’t have roads. It wasn’t designed to say you can’t go hiking, you can’t do fire management activities,” Riggers said. “It makes it a little different in terms of how you approach it, but there weren’t many instances - if any that I can recall - where we couldn’t do projects. (The rule) wasn’t so you couldn’t do stuff - it’s so that you protect these unique characteristics of roadless areas when you do stuff.”
Conservation groups say the combination of repealing the Roadless Rule and watering down the Travel Plan Rule serves to gut Forest Service oversight of balanced use.
“Just two days after doubling down on repealing the Roadless Rule, this (Travel Plan) announcement makes the administration’s plan obvious: gut the rules that require the Forest Service to carefully manage our natural resources and listen to the public, then open the gates to industry and extraction,” said Hilary Eisen, Wild Montana federal policy director in a release. “Forest Service leadership has already shown during the Roadless rescission how much it values public input, science, and expert management: not at all. Agency leadership has lost the public’s trust, and should expect the public to hold them accountable.”
The Outdoor Recreation Roundtable Association, representing both motorized and non-motorized recreation businesses, said it appreciated that the USDA was going to amend rather than repeal the Travel Plan Rule.
“This is a win for the outdoor recreation business community who is against full repeal of the rule that has governed trail use for decades. What comes next will be critical for the recreation economy and the rural communities that depend on it, so it’s important that the full spectrum of outdoor recreation industry perspectives are taken into account for the final rule,” the association said in a release.
The Roadless Rule doesn’t prohibit off-road vehicle use on trails in roadless areas. However, the Blue Ribbon Coalition, representing motorized recreation, said the Roadless Rule was part of the problem with travel management.
“BlueRibbon Coalition has pointed out that roughly 28 million of (Forest Service) acres are now rated at high or very high wildfire risk, precisely because the roads that would let crews thin fuels and respond to fire are the ones the rule keeps out of reach. The same roads that provide motorized recreation access are also the infrastructure land managers need for active forest health work, so a rule aimed at one goal ends up undermining both,” the coalition said on its website.
Ironically, more roads could lead to more wildfire, because 85-94% of wildfires are caused by people, and the more roads there are, the more places people can accidentally start fires. So Forest Service employees don’t buy the “forest health” argument for more roads.
“Putting in roads really increases the human-caused fires. Human-caused starts, according to the Forest Service databases, account for easily 75% of our fires every year,” said Julie Shea, retired Forest Service fire behavior specialist, in February. “Roads are going to open up dispersed camping and increase the fire risk. It doesn’t make sense. I can’t buy the fire-risk argument to get rid of the roadless rule.”
While people can argue over access issues, it is ultimately wildlife and those who value wildlife that have the most to lose. More roads and road use will degrade more wildlife habitat for larger mammals, such as elk and grizzly bears; threaten ungulate populations by cutting through important migratory routes; and harm birds and insects who need quiet areas so mates can hear their breeding calls.
“The USDA’s announcement to gut the Travel Management Rule and the Roadless Rule in the same week is a one-two punch that together deals a tremendous blow to wildlife. The Travel Management Rule states simply that motorized vehicles must stay on routes and areas designated locally for that use. The Forest Service issued the rule over 20 years ago to curb damage from unmanaged recreation, reduce user conflict and protect public safety. Rescinding it now is irresponsible and reckless,” said Vera Smith, Defenders of Wildlife's public lands program director in a release.
Contact reporter Laura Lunquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.