Trump Administration Readies the Axe for Nearly 45 Million Acres of Public Forests

Adopted in 2001 with vast public support, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule protected forests at a scale unparalleled in American history. For 25 years, the rule has safeguarded the living heart of the National Forest System by barring commercial logging and road construction across 58.5 million acres of wild forests. 

Today, protections for approximately 45 million acres of those public forests are on the chopping block. 

Among their many virtues, these roadless areas act as a shield for a big chunk of the nation’s mature and old-growth trees and forests. By limiting commercial logging, the rule ensures those places can continue to protect important watersheds, safeguard imperiled wildlife, and capture and store massive amounts of climate-changing carbon for generations to come. The Roadless Rule plays a particularly important role in protecting Alaska’s Tongass National Forest—the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest and the country’s largest old-growth forest. Thanks to the rule, about 9.2 million acres of the Tongass have been protected. 

Now, in their deregulatory zeal, the Trump administration has begun the process of gutting this rule. On August 20, 2026, the USDA issued the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) and proposed rule to rescind national roadless protections, endangering beloved landscapes across the country. 

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has justified this rollback by alleging it was needed to prevent wildfire, bolster timber production, enhance local control, and contribute to Trump’s deregulation agenda. 

While wildfire gives Secretary Rollins a timely media hook and is front of mind for the states and communities impacted by an increasingly perilous fire season, roadless forests are not the cause—and logging them is not the solution. The rule already allows for wildfire management and response. Moreover, current research and firefighter testimony agree that more roads, less tree cover, and increased human activity increase the likelihood of wildfire ignitions. 

The environmental analysis within the DEIS itself states that “ignition density is approximately four times greater on other [National Forest System] lands compared to the potentially affected [Inventoried Roadless Areas] and wilderness. Most of this difference is due to the greater density of human-caused ignitions within other NFS lands (Table 21).” 

This underscores the fact that the Forest Service knows these protected wild forests are some of the least likely places for a fire to start—especially compared to other more actively managed forest system lands. 

If the administration truly cared about safeguarding communities from wildfire, it would support red card–holding Forest Service staff who are trained to fight fires and invest in the agency scientists researching the drivers and impacts of climate and wildfire. Instead, the administration is gutting the Forest Service with DOGE cuts and a sweeping agency reorganization, creating chaos and further reducing staff capacity and morale during fire season. 

As for economic development, our public forests are valuable for much more than just the timber we can log from them. The U.S. outdoor recreation economy alone can generate more than $1.3 trillion of economic output every year. Intact public forests and lands serve as the lifeblood for many local economies. Opening the nation’s roadless forests to logging and roadbuilding serves the timber industry at the expense of the everyday people who live, work, and recreate in these special places. Indeed, spinning up logging projects in these landscapes will only add to the budgetary hole the agency is in; the Forest Service does not have the funds or the staff to even address the current backlog of road and bridge maintenance requests, estimated at $8.6 billion in 2023. 

As for local control, it’s hard to square that with the president’s logging directives, the administration’s moves to suppress public input, and the widespread use of “emergency” exceptions that allow destructive projects to shortcut analysis and transparency. You cannot claim “local control” if the president and USDA secretary are calling all the shots. 

Getting rid of the Roadless Rule is another instance of the administration’s destructive deregulatory ideology working to advance an extractive agenda—regardless of the smoke and mirrors set up to obscure the real cost of degrading these special places. 

Intact roadless areas are enormously beneficial to the environment and wildly popular with the American public. 

Wildlife

Home to many iconic and often imperiled species across the country (including grizzly bears, wolves, songbirds, and salmon), these largely uninterrupted landscapes serve as refuges in the midst of climate change and pressure from development. The new interpretation of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act makes protecting habitats like these all the more vital. 

These landscapes are also crucial for the safe migration of valuable game species, like elk and mule deer. Whether for conservation or for sport, these habitats are vital for wildlife. 

Water

Roadless areas also support clean drinking water for tens of millions of Americans. These forestlands capture, filter, and channel clean water from headwaters down to municipalities. 

Recreation

Each year, millions of Americans explore tens of thousands of hiking and biking trails, whitewater paddling runs, and climbing routes in roadless areas. This includes some of the nation’s most iconic vistas: sections of the Appalachian Trail out East, areas surrounding the Boundary Waters in the Midwest, parts of the Continental Divide trail that run along the Rocky Mountain states, and key pieces of the Pacific Crest Trail down the West Coast. 

Some of the greatest examples of American majesty are protected in roadless areas so that folks from across the world can camp, hike, hunt, fish, climb, and paddle in our awe-inspiring landscapes.

Climate

Obliterating the rule also risks one of our most cost-effective climate mitigation solutions. Industrial logging most often targets the bigger, older trees, which not only provide cool, shady microclimates for people and wildlife alike but also capture and store more carbon than their smaller, younger counterparts. Our older trees are doing carbon capture and storage for us for free—all we need to do is leave them standing. 

When chainsaws and bulldozers chew their way through these formerly intact forests, they will pollute drinking water, lower air quality, degrade habitat, destroy old forest—and we will irretrievably lose some of the country’s last remaining wildlands.

The USDA knows this matters to the public. The Roadless Rule was developed through one of the most robust public processes in federal rulemaking history, with 1.6 million public comments submitted to the agency—approximately 95 percent in support of roadless protections. By all measures, the current rescission effort’s public engagement has been woefully inadequate. Despite this, the public has made its opposition known. In the face of a measly 21 days for public comment during the scoping period in 2025, more than 600,000 comments were submitted, with above 99 percent opposing rescission. This support comes from all corners of the country and across the political spectrum, proving once again how deeply Americans cherish our public lands. 

The last public comment period is now open, and we’ve been given just 30 days to make our voices heard. Over the last 25 years, NRDC has championed the Roadless Rule and defended against reckless administrative rollbacks, protecting our wildest places for ourselves and for the future. Now is the time to act: We have until September 21, 2026, to send comments to the USDA and tell them we oppose its plan to rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. With your help, we’re ready to fight back against Trump’s latest attack on our public forests and priceless roadless areas.