Brooke Rollins, the department’s secretary, called the rule “overly restrictive” and an “absurd obstacle” to forest management when she made the announcement during a Western Governors’ Association meeting in New Mexico. The rule, she said, prohibits agencies from properly managing forests and preventing wildfire, while stifling the timber industry.

Utah leaders celebrated the decision, with House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, calling it a “big win” for the state.

But in Utah, proponents of the rule say it’s a vital tool for protecting the state’s forests, which in turn keep water clean, provide habitat for wildlife and allow recreation opportunities.

“This rule protects almost half of the forest service land in Utah,” said Kate Groetzinger, communications director for the Center for Western Priorities. “This opens about half of Utah’s forest land to logging that has been previously protected. That can drastically change the feel of some of our most popular forests.”

The scope of the roadless rule in Utah

The roadless rule was established during the Clinton administration in 2001 and restricts road construction and reconstruction, and timber harvests, on roughly 58.5 million acres of the country’s national forests and grasslands. The goal, according to the forest service, “is to provide lasting protection” on some of the country’s most remote areas.

Called inventoried roadless areas, the forest service created boundaries around roads and existing infrastructure to identify stretches of forest eligible for more stringent protection. Inventoried roadless areas are typically sorted into two categories — places where road construction or reconstruction is allowed, and places where it isn’t allowed.

There are roadless areas along the Wasatch Front, in places like Big, Little, Millcreek and American Fork canyons; in vast sections of the Uinta Mountains; in southern Utah, near Moab and Monticello. They can be recreation hotspots, with some of the state’s most popular hiking trails on or near roadless areas.

Utah has roughly 8.1 million acres of national forest, according to the federal government, spread out across eight regions — Ashley, Caribou, Dixie, Fishlake, Manti-La Sal, Sawtooth, Uinta and Wasatch-Cache national forests.

According to forest service data, about 4 million acres is inventoried roadless area — road construction and reconstruction is allowed on about 3.5 million acres, and prohibited on the remaining 446,000 acres.

But according to Tim Peterson, the cultural landscapes director for Grand Canyon Trust, the distinction can be misleading.

“We haven’t built a lot of new roads in our national forests over the last two to three decades,” said Peterson, who’s been involved in Utah’s roadless areas since the 1990s and helped conduct inventories for environmental groups. “Road building is so expensive and the forest service already has a maintenance backlog … we can’t even maintain the roads that we have, let alone build new roads.”

Regardless of whether new road construction is or isn’t allowed, the rule generally prohibits timber harvesting in covered areas. There are exceptions, Peterson said, including mechanical thinning, removing trees killed by insects, or for fighting fire.

In an email, Redge Johnson, the director of the Utah Public Land Policy Coordinating Office, acknowledged the exceptions, but said the state is still confined in its ability to manage forests to improve habitat and reduce fire danger.

“While the roadless rule allows for limited timber harvest it has so many restrictions it makes it nearly impossible for timber projects to be completed,” Johnson said. “Our forests are overgrown and unhealthy, it is past time that we start to actively manage our national forests.”

Johnson shared a picture with Utah News Dispatch that he took while on a recent horsepacking trip through the Manti-La Sal National Forest, that shows an entire ridge with mostly dead coniferous trees.

“Even though there are old logging roads on the ridge shown, we can not use them to remove the dead timber due to the restrictions from the roadless rule. Removing this dead timber would reduce wildfire risk, increase wildlife habitat and protect our watersheds,” Johnson said.

What’s next?

Despite Rollins’ announcement, the federal government still needs to go through a formal process to rescind the roadless rule.

That includes preparation of an environmental analysis, making sure the action complies with the Endangered Species Act, and consulting with local governments and tribes, according to the forest service.

Johnson called Rollins’ announcement a first step.

“Our office is awaiting more information on what the process will entail,” he said.

Peterson noted that the Trump administration isn’t the first to try and rescind the rule.

“It’s much more complicated than just saying you’re going to get rid of it,” he said.

In 2005, the Bush administration tried to replace the it with the State Petitions Rule, which allowed governors to tailor their own national forest protections. Some states submitted plans that aligned with the original protections — others, like Idaho, asked for drastically reduced protections.

The Bush administration’s rule was challenged in court and ultimately overturned.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert also tried to petition the government for a Utah-specific roadless rule in 2019, which was ultimately unsuccessful.

What to expect if the roadless rule is rescinded

Assuming the administration is able to scale back the rule, there would be 4 million extra acres of forest service land in Utah that would be open for timber harvesting — the state says that would allow for increased wildfire mitigation and forest management.

“We are excited with this new direction by the United States Department of Agriculture,  allowing the federal government, state partners and industry to address a variety of forest health and ecosystem services issues, like water quality/quantity, wildlife, forage and air quality,” said Johnson. “We are looking forward to engaging with the Trump Administration, USDA, and the Forest Service to promote healthy, diverse and productive forests here in Utah and across the country.”

Rollins, in a recent op-ed for the Deseret News, said to date about 8 million acres of roadless forest around the country have burned in wildfire, and rescinding the rule would free up forest managers who she argues are constrained by the rule.

The USDA also said rescinding the rule will help boost the state’s economy.

“Utah alone estimates the roadless rule alone creates a 25% decrease in economic development in the forestry sector,” reads a press release from the department.

Advocates for the rule, however, are skeptical. According to an analysis from the forest service, the roadless rule has led to an estimated reduction of just 59 jobs related to timber harvesting in Utah and Peterson said the logging industry in the state was never that robust to begin with.

“There has never really been a huge timber industry in Utah,” he said, “and getting rid of the roadless area rule would not make for a big timber industry in Utah, because roads are so expensive to build.”

If the forest service is serious about expanding timber harvesting, he said, it’s going to need a bigger budget. The agency’s deferred maintenance backlog for roads and bridges was estimated at $4.4 billion in 2022 and the president’s budget proposal would slash millions from forest service operations.

“If we’re going to be building roads and doing timber sales, it’s not reflected in the budget that the administration has put forward to Congress,” Peterson said.

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.