Prevent Forest Fires, Keep the 'Roadless Rule'

My home of Virginia is God's country.

I've sailed its waters and marveled at the magnificence of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest.

This forest is a living monument to two of Virginia's great native sons and, unlike the marble and limestone monuments that honor them in D.C., it protects old-growth trees, dozens of threatened and endangered species, and thousands of miles of streams that supply our drinking water.

We are blessed to have this resource for recreation, hunting, and fishing — today and for future generations.

Unless the forest is cut down.

Recently, some folks in Washington have decided it would be a good idea to get rid of protections for over 58 million acres of U.S. Forest land across 39 states — including hundreds of thousands of protected acres here in Virginia.

These protections were established in 2001 by the U.S. Forest Service "Roadless Rule" and they conserve some of our most pristine, wild, and backcountry federal forests.

As its name suggests, the Roadless Rule was meant to restrict road building and harvesting timber in specific areas designated as roadless.

This conserved a percentage of the nearly 200 million acres under total management by the Forest Service.

As conservatives, we have a long history of caring for the environment, as well as finding the most effective solutions toward that end.

I have written six books on President Ronald Reagan and have written about his conservation legacy.

But in June of this year, the current leadership of the Forest Service — an agency created by another great conservative conservationist president, Teddy Roosevelt —  announced their intent to repeal the Roadless Rule.

Among the agency claims, is that repealing the rule would make it easier to prevent and fight wildfires.

To be clear, I fully support President Trump and think he has done an incredible job taking down the Deep State and federal government overreach, sealing our open borders, rolling back woke ideologies, making us safe again, and much more.

But on this issue, I think the actions by some bureaucrats in his administration seeking to repeal the Roadless Rule are misguided.

Plenty of studies show that logging forests and building more roads causes fire.

One analysis from as far back as 2007, found that humans start 88% of wildfires and ninety-five percent begin within half a mile of a road.

Another more recent study from this year, showed wildfire-ignition was three times lower in roadless areas compared to areas within a couple hundred feet of roads.

This just makes sense.

The presence of more people means: more cigarette butts being thrown out windows, more sparks from construction and heavy machinery, more camp stoves, and still more fires not being extinguished correctly.

Wildfire is one of the biggest natural disasters facing our nation and it is commendable to want to reduce its hardship to our communities.

But opening more of our backcountry forests to development will make the issue of fire much worse. There is also no restriction to fighting fire in roadless areas if that is needed.

I have a personal stake in this, as we all do.

I'm an American and have hiked and hunted in our public lands from upstate New York to New Mexico as a Boy Scout into adulthood.

We all own our public lands, not just foreign corporations who want to profit off their development.

Additionally, apart from being concerned about the federal forests in my state, I've also been involved in conservation issues for many years.

I shared my voice to keep our heritage forests in Alaska from being exploited by multinational corporations to the benefit of China.

I showed how China and other Pacific Rim countries are the top importers of raw log exports from places like the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

To add insult to injury, American taxpayers subsidized logging in the Tongass to the tune of $30 million a year. Yes, you heard that right.

American taxpayers funded the destruction and export of our natural heritage to Communist China.

I am happy to share my voice again today as this issue comes back around, not just for the Tongass but all national forests across the country.

Here’s the deal. The U.S. Forest Service already has 380,000 miles of roads within our national forests they can’t afford to maintain.

It would cost the agency even more to build new roads which would waste our tax dollars — for the purpose of timber production or any other reason.

A 2020 report by Taxpayers for Common Sense, found the Forest Service would have lost over $190 million over five years if they had opened up those Alaskan forests to development.

"It actually costs taxpayers millions to 'sell' timber that we collectively own, which makes no sense," they said. "Rolling back the roadless rule will put the losses from a clearly broken timber sale program on steroids."

This is true across the country.

If circumstances require the Roadless Rule to be updated or modified, that should be the course of action.

But getting rid of it completely is a recipe for environmental chaos, more fire, more government waste, and wasting our tax dollars.

Craig Shirley is Chairman of Citizens for the Republic and a bestselling author. Read Craig Shirley's Reports — More Here.