Back in June, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins would begin the process of revoking the 2001 Roadless Rule. The rule, which was

Old-growth forest in the Dark Divide Roadless Area, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Washington Cascades. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair

Back in June, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins would begin the process of revoking the 2001 Roadless Rule. The rule, which was enacted at the end of the Clinton administration, prohibits road construction, road reconstruction, and timber harvesting on 58.5 million acres of roadless areas within the National Forests. You can read about why revoking the rule is a bad thing here.

Flash forward to August 29,  the USDA announced in the Federal Register its initiation of an environmental impact statement (EIS) and rulemaking concerning the management of roadless areas on National Forest System lands, with public comments due by September 19. That makes the public comment period 21 days, or three weeks. The original roadless area rule was a two-year process that involved more than 600 public hearings across the US and more than 1.6 million public comments.

Understanding the process is key to understanding why this is an issue. When a federal agency determines whether a new rule is necessary, it proposes a regulation — in this case, the rescission of the 2001 Roadless Rule. These proposals are published in the Federal Register. According to the federal eRulemaking Program Management Office, “In a typical case, an agency will allow 60 days for public comment. However, in some cases, they provide either shorter or longer comment periods.” The Federal Register states that complex rule-making processes, however, can lead to extended timeframes, potentially exceeding 180 days, and shorter comment periods may be implemented if adequate justification exists.

The USDA press office defended the decision to Inside Climate News, saying, “Regulations do not specify the length of public comments. For the notice of intent to development (sic) an environmental impact statement, the 21 days was determined to be efficient to notify the public and seek comment. The comment period for the draft environmental impact statement and the proposed rule will be longer.”

How this works with Trump’s June 30 executive order targeting environmental reviews and Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which rescinded $100 million from the Chief of the Forest Service’s budget to conduct environmental reviews, is unclear. What is clear is that the agency’s March 2026 deadline for a draft EIS and a final rule, as well as a record of decision, by late 2026 is either incredibly optimistic or intentionally rushed. According to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, which requires agencies to assess the environmental impact of major projects, impact statements “should generally be completed within two years.” USDA believes it can have a draft ready in five months on an incredibly complex issue that affects tens of millions of acres of forest land and watersheds across the US.  To get a sense of how quick that is, the Council on Environmental Quality found in 2024 that the median time from notice of intent to final impact statement was 2.2 years.

It’s inescapably clear that with an incredibly compressed timeline, the environmental impact statement’s recommendations are a foregone conclusion —one that will almost certainly favor the president’s corporate backers over the environment, wildlife, and communities that will be affected. On the bright side, the mishandling of the process is more than likely to trigger lawsuits from conservation and environmental groups, potentially tying up the decision in the courts for an extended period of time. During this period, states — particularly those in the West — aiming to conserve forest land ought to start thinking about how to enact roadless area regulations specifically adapted to their unique landscapes and ecological features, so that a future, more environmentally friendly administration can help protect these areas in the long term. Again, local action is the most effective response to federal abuses.

This first appeared on CEPR.

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