The Trump administration this week announced it would rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule, which banned development and logging on 59 million acres of federal forests.
The administrative rule, signed by President Bill Clinton in his final days in office, applies to millions of acres in Southern Oregon, according to conservation groups.
“Some of the most interesting, scenic places in Southwest Oregon are going to be losing protections because of this change,” said Erik Fernandez with Oregon Wild.
He said Oregon contains 2 million acres of roadless areas, including McDonald Peak, Brown Mountain and parts of the Illinois Valley.
“This is bad news for anyone who cares about wildlife, old-growth forests and clean drinking water,” Fernandez said.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said the rule hindered firefighting and logging.
“It is abundantly clear that properly managing our forests preserves them from devastating fires and allows future generations of Americans to enjoy and reap the benefits of this great land,” Rollins said.
Fernandez said Oregon Wild — and likely other environmental groups — plans to sue the administration to stop the rule change.
“We will see the Trump administration in court on this one for sure,” he said.
The Roadless Rule rollback is just the latest potential change in public land policy worrying conservationists in Oregon.
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah is working on a bill to sell Bureau of Land Management areas within five miles of population centers. A previous plan to sell more than 2 million acres of BLM and Forest Service land was removed from a tax and spending bill by the Senate parliamentarian.
Lee’s new plan also calls for the establishment of “Freedom Zones” of public land to “benefit American families.”
Public land in the Rogue Valley could fall within the proposed boundary, although Lee hasn’t specified how large population centers must be.
“In Southwest Oregon, that's a lot of backyard forest,” Fernandez said. “Places that people treasure and value.”
Supporters of the proposal say developing public land would help alleviate the nation’s housing shortage.
Oregon Republican Rep. Cliff Bentz said in a statement that he didn’t support the mandated sale of an “arbitrarily established” amount of federal land.
“Some might argue that the abject failure of the federal government to adequately manage BLM and Forest Service land justifies its sale,” Bentz said. “But sale of this land to someone else is no way to assure its proper management.”
