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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 31, 2007
Contact:
Paul Hughes, executive director, Forests Forever, at (415) 974-4201
Marc Lecard, communications manager, Forests Forever, at (415) 974-4202
The Roadless Area Conservation Act is back
Bill would permanently protect roadless areas
On May 24, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA), joined by a bipartisan group
of 140 representatives, re-introduced the Roadless Area Conservation
Act (now H.R. 2516) in the U.S. House of Representatives.
A companion bill was re-introduced in the Senate by Sens. Maria
Cantwell (D-WA) and John Warner (R-VA), along with 16 of their fellow
senators.
The bill would codify the provisions of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation
Rule as federal law, which could not be changed by executive whim.
The Clinton-era rule protected roadless federal land that had not
received wilderness designation from roadbuilding, mining, oil and
gas drilling, and development.
In addition to protecting roadless areas in the national forests,
this bill would restore protection to Alaska’s Tongass National
Forest, which the Bush administration exempted from the roadless
rule in 2005.
Forests Forever has supported the Roadless Area Conservation Act
since it was first introduced in 2002, and has worked to protect
this country’s wild unroaded forests.
In September 2006, Judge Elizabeth Laporte of the U.S. district
court in San Francisco ruled that the Forest Service had acted illegally
by repealing the original roadless rule without first conducting
an environmental review as required by the National Environmental
Policy Act, and for failing to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, as required by
the Endangered Species Act.
“Even though the court ruled in our favor and restored the
original roadless rule, the fight is far from over,” said
Paul Hughes, Forests Forever’s executive director. “The
Bush administration and the timber industry will continue to do
everything they can to overturn it.”
The original Roadless Area Conservation Rule was the most popular
environmental rule ever written, with 4.2 million comments over
several public comment periods. The overwhelming majority of these
comments (97.9 percent) were in favor of protecting roadless areas.
The loss of its protections for roadless areas would put at risk
hundreds of plant, insect, and animal species, threaten water quality
and leave forests more vulnerable than before to invasive species.
“We need the roadless rule’s protections to be codified
by an act of Congress because it’s apparently the only way
to keep industry’s hands out of the public resources cookie
jar,” Hughes said. “Hats off to Rep. Inslee, senators
Cantwell and Warner, and all the co-sponsors of this important piece
of legislation.”
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