Despite public land making up about 63% of Idaho, it will not be affected by the latest Trump administration attempt to rollback regulations related to roads and logging on forest service acreage.
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Monday that her agency will rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule. That’s a Clinton-era regulation that blocks road construction, logging and fire prevention activities, like prescribed burns, on nearly 59 million acres of public land.
“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 in a press release.
During the Roadless Rule’s public comment period in 2000, former Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne submitted a lengthy letter saying the proposal “...will have a potentially devastating impact on public schools and the children, as well as local economies.”
Kempthorne said the Idaho Department of Lands estimated a loss of $163 million for education over a 30-year period if the proposal closed access to state endowment lands earmarked for public schools.
Both Idaho and Colorado eventually negotiated their own regulations of these lands with the federal government after the 2001 rule was put into place.
In 2008, then-Gov. Jim Risch led local governments, tribes and companies to a compromise, allowing these activities on 5.7 million acres of national forest land.
That deal left 3.7 million acres protected.
“As governor, I saw the need for the different Idaho groups to sit down and come up with our own plan,” now U.S. Senator Risch said in a press release in 2012.
“The federally-mandated one size fits all approach did not work, and we had an opportunity to craft a plan with people who truly knew the state,” he said.
John Robison, Public Lands and Wildlife Director for the Idaho Conservation League, said the deal is an example of states partnering with the federal government to better manage these public lands.
“They are some of the most important sources of clean water for our communities, they’re intact forest, they provide core habitat for fish and wildlife and really provide the best hunting and fishing opportunities in the state,” Robison said.
The rollback of the Roadless Rule for other states will have to go through the federal rulemaking process.
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