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CULTURE✒ EDITORIALABSURDITY:
Proposed Roadless Rule Rescission Could Hurt Rural Economies
Filed 1h ago · Via Daily Yonder · The Buffoon Desk
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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0
Photo: Internet Archive Book Images · No restrictions · via Wikimedia Commons
The Trump Administration has proposed rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule, which would open roughly 45 million of the 59 million protected acres to logging, mining and road construction, with USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins citing wildfire management as justification.
Rural communities and researchers dispute that logic: a 2026 Headwaters Economics study found 77% of wildfires from 1992-2024 were human-ignited, and fire scientists say ignitions cluster near roads, not away from them. The Forest Service, meanwhile, already carries an $8.6 billion road maintenance backlog.
In Washington's Methow Valley and New Mexico's Gila National Forest, residents say they're already managing fire risk through local planning and don't need new roads, while the rule that received 1.6 million public comments in 2001 — a record — faces a 30-day comment window this time.
The full dispatch is available from the source below.
✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK
Rolling back a rule to fix a problem the rule wasn't causing has a familiar smell to it, like a landlord promising new gutters while quietly eyeing the lot for condos. The people who actually live next to these forests keep saying the same thing: more roads means more ignition points, not fewer. When the folks with the wildfire scars on their calendar disagree with the agency holding the chainsaw, it's worth asking who actually stands to gain from the clearing.
