National forests threatened by federal rulemaking, AGs warn

SEATTLE – The U.S. Forest Service should abandon efforts that would open up approximately 45 million acres of national forests to development that would destroy recreation areas and harm local and state economies, according to a multistate comment letter submitted on Friday co-led by Washington Attorney General Nick Brown and California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

In June, the Trump administration announced its intent to repeal the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, widely known as the Roadless Rule, which has protected our national forests from unnecessary road construction and commercial logging for nearly 25 years. Now the U.S. Forest Service is following through on that misguided promise.

In Washington, the rule protects approximately 2 million acres statewide, including parts of the Olympic, Mount Baker-Snoqualmie, Gifford Pinchot, Okanogan-Wenatchee, Colville, and Umatilla national forests. Washington’s state-owned forest lands border many national forest properties in the state.

Roadless areas support more than 11,000 climbing routes and boulder problems, 1,000 whitewater paddling runs, 43,000 miles of trail, and 20,000 mountain biking trails across the country, according to The Mountaineers.

The outdoors industry nationally accounted for approximately $1.2 trillion in economic output in 2023, according to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. The industry relies on these areas, as do the communities that surround them. In Washington alone, visitors spend nearly $1 billion annually in the communities in and around the national forest lands threatened by this action.

“A generation of Washingtonians has grown up enjoying these lands knowing they were protected from development,” Brown said. “Repealing or weakening this rule will increase wildfire risk, degrade our old-growth forests, pollute our waters, threaten our fish and wildlife, and jeopardize culturally important sites for tribes. We’ll oppose this action with every tool available to us.”

Areas protected by the Roadless Rule are part of an overall network of federal and state lands providing for contiguous habitat, recreation, and ecological resources to the benefit of the whole country.

According to its own analysis, the U.S. Forest Service cannot even afford to maintain existing roads: In 2024, the agency reported a backlog of $6 billion in road maintenance for the passenger vehicle roads that account for less than 18% of its total road system. The agency has previously acknowledged that additional roadbuilding made little fiscal or environmental sense when it is already struggling to maintain its existing road system.

Washington state has been a leader in defending the rule from previous efforts to overturn it. In the early 2000s, Washington led a coalition of states defending the rule and successfully argued the case on behalf of states before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Joining Washington state and California in the comment letter are the states of Arizona, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont.

A copy of the comment letter is available here.

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