Sponsors (5)
The bill speeds and expands road access to enable faster wildfire-fuels treatments and forest restoration, but does so by rolling back roadless protections and authorizing new roads that risk ecosystem fragmentation, water-quality harm, and higher public costs.
Rural and wildland-urban interface communities (homeowners, towns, local governments) gain faster hazardous-fuels reduction and wildfire-risk mitigation because required road access enables quicker implementation of treatments and restoration work.
Forest Service restoration and maintenance projects can be implemented more quickly and reliably because roads needed for access are authorized, reducing project delays and improving operational efficiency.
Communities and watersheds may benefit when roads that are actively harming forest, rangeland, or watershed health are replaced or decommissioned, potentially improving ecosystem function and downstream water resources.
The bill rolls back Roadless Rule protections and bars similar future rules, removing a key federal conservation tool and enabling new road construction that can fragment wilderness, reduce biodiversity, and degrade recreation values.
New road construction authorized by the bill may increase sedimentation and other water-quality risks for downstream communities and municipal watersheds, threatening drinking water supplies and aquatic ecosystems.
Expanding logging, road-building, and restoration access could raise federal costs and cause local disruption from construction and ongoing maintenance, imposing economic burdens on taxpayers and community infrastructure.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Nullifies the 2001 Roadless rule, bars similar future rules, and directs the Forest Service to build roads on National Forest lands as needed for restoration, fuels reduction, and watershed work.
Introduced February 25, 2026 by Harriet Hageman · Last progress February 25, 2026
Nullifies the Forest Service’s 2001 Roadless Area Conservation rule and bars the Secretary of Agriculture from issuing any substantially similar rule. Requires the Forest Service Chief to construct permanent and temporary roads on National Forest System lands, as needed and consistent with environmental laws, to support restoration work, hazardous fuels reduction in at-risk communities and the wildland-urban interface, municipal watershed work, and to replace or decommission existing roads that harm forest, rangeland, or watershed health.