In June 2025 USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the agency's intent to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, commonly known as the "Roadless Rule". On August 29th, the proposal was official published in the Federal Register. By the end of the public comment period on September 19, the proposal garnered a whopping 625,931 comments -- with more than 98% of those opposed to repealing the Rule. For comparison, the average number of comments on a proposed rule is just 2,605 and the median is 3.
The USDA expects to release a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the proposed rule repeal in June 2026, which will be followed by another public comment period.
If enacted the rescission would affect nearly 45 million acres of national forest land, including 394,000 acres on the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in Virginia, opening these forests to logging and development. Virginia’s largest roadless area protects part of a watershed that Staunton uses for drinking water. A nearby complex of roadless areas protects part of the water supply for Harrisonburg. Together, more than 75,000 people live in the cities that rely on the two water systems. If protections are lost, new roads and logging steep slopes will eventually harm drinking water quality and increase water filtration costs, as sediment, debris, and pollutants wash off newly-logged denuded slopes and into drinking water reservoirs.
In addition, the removal of the Roadless Rule would lead to the loss of recreation areas, increase oil and gas leasing and other harmful development on public lands, hurt wildlife and biodiversity through habitat loss, and a higher risk of wildfire ignition. Once gone, these forests take generations to grow back. We must protect them now!
Roadless Rule FAQs
The USDA expects to release a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the proposed rule repeal in June 2026, which will be followed by another public comment period.
If enacted the rescission would affect nearly 45 million acres of national forest land, including 394,000 acres on the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in Virginia, opening these forests to logging and development. Virginia’s largest roadless area protects part of a watershed that Staunton uses for drinking water. A nearby complex of roadless areas protects part of the water supply for Harrisonburg. Together, more than 75,000 people live in the cities that rely on the two water systems. If protections are lost, new roads and logging steep slopes will eventually harm drinking water quality and increase water filtration costs, as sediment, debris, and pollutants wash off newly-logged denuded slopes and into drinking water reservoirs.
In addition, the removal of the Roadless Rule would lead to the loss of recreation areas, increase oil and gas leasing and other harmful development on public lands, hurt wildlife and biodiversity through habitat loss, and a higher risk of wildfire ignition. Once gone, these forests take generations to grow back. We must protect them now!
Roadless Rule FAQs
Banding together to support our public lands on the 25th Anniversary of the Roadless Rule
Representative Jennifer McClellan, SELC Executive Director DJ Gerken, Senator Tim Kaine, VWC Executive Director Ellen Stuart-Haentjens, and SELC Virginia Office Director Sarah Francisco in Richmond on Monday, January 12, 2026 marking the 25th Anniversary of the Roadless Rule. They are posed next to a poster that shows the roadless areas in Virginia that could lose protections if the Forest Service gets rid of the Roadless Rule.
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See Stuart-Haëntjens full comments below.
Comment in support of safeguarding the Roadless Rule, submitted to regulations.gov in September 2025
Article on the Environmental Impacts of Roadless Areas
by Oliver Milman at The Guardian
How the Rescission of the Roadless Rule Could Affect Virginia
by Randi B. Hagi at WMRA
