Sponsors (5)
The bill trades increased road access and clarified authority to speed fuels reduction and restoration projects (benefiting at‑risk communities and project delivery) against greater roadbuilding in formerly protected roadless areas with risks to ecosystems, water quality, taxpayer costs, and reduced future conservation regulatory flexibility.
Residents in at‑risk and wildland‑urban interface communities will have additional roads to support hazardous fuels reduction and access for restoration work, potentially reducing wildfire risk and improving forest and watershed health.
Forest Service authority is clarified to carry out projects under the 1897 Forest Reserve Act intent, which may speed implementation of restoration, watershed, and multiple‑use land management projects.
Removing the 2001 Roadless Rule and allowing more road construction on formerly protected roadless areas will harm recreation, fragment habitat, increase erosion, and worsen watershed and water quality outcomes for communities downstream.
Increased road projects will raise costs for taxpayers and require Forest Service resources that could be diverted from other programs and priorities.
Prohibiting similar future rules could reduce long‑term protections for roadless areas and limit future regulatory flexibility to conserve public lands.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Repeals the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation rule, bars similar rules, and directs the Forest Service to build or maintain roads on National Forest lands for restoration, fuels reduction, and related activities.
Repeals the Department of Agriculture’s 2001 Roadless Area Conservation rule so it no longer has any force or effect, and prevents the Secretary of Agriculture from issuing any substantially similar rule. Directs the Forest Service, subject to environmental review (including NEPA), to build or maintain permanent and temporary roads on National Forest System lands when needed for restoration, hazardous fuels reduction near at-risk communities or the wildland-urban interface, replacing or removing roads that harm forest or watershed health, or to carry out long-standing forest-management laws.
Introduced February 25, 2026 by Harriet Hageman · Last progress February 25, 2026