The Roadless Rule Needs Your Help

[warthog]

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As a mountain biker, I&#39;d be a lot more excited to save this rule if the wilderness groups hadn&#39;t used it as a tool to shut me out of 1000&#39;s of miles of trail in areas that aren&#39;t designated Wilderness. Maybe if the Sierra Club, Wilderness Society, and others hadn&#39;t been so effective in abusing the intent behind this rule, it wouldn&#39;t be on the chopping block now. Sent from my SM-S931U1 using Tapatalk

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Funny. Same thing happens here. They want you to sign a petition banning long lining and limiting commercial fishing, and then you find out that it actually does more to try to limit recreational fishing access.</p>
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Same with the Save The Manatee people. Hint- They already saved them. Manatee populations are higher than ever. They keep pushing though, because most of the crazys that latched onto that cause really want to shut down the waterways to all boat traffic. It has very little to do with the Manatee. These people have all the time in the world to fight this, and they do.</p>
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Sad that they don&#39;t realize that getting more people, especially young people, out in the wilderness more, through easier access, would help people appreciate it more.</p>

[civilcoconut]

I tend to find myself looking for politicians who will temper the over zealous wishes of people who want to preserve habitat, animals, water and air quality rather than using that over zealousness to excuse unfettered development without regard the impacts. The people rolling these rules back are not just automotons without agency reacting to the success of environmental groups. They have agency, have well publiziced agendas and policy goals and are acting on them. To wit, the people rolling back the roadless rules would happily roll back NP protections and hard rock mine the Grand Tetons and permit a strip mine in Tahoe if they thought they could make a buck and there wasn&#39;t a law in their way. I supposed you might get some bike access back if the WSA designations are rolled back, but these people have demonstrated that they are activelty hostile to any expenditure of money on infrastructure for bikes. IMO, there is a larger conext to the other revisions to regulations and attempts to revise environmental regulation. It&#39;s not about being smarter, it&#39;s just about getting rid of them and go back to the era before the &#39;60&#39;s/&#39;70&#39;s. Roadless rules are completely in line with the USFS mission. Are they perfect? No, but better to protect these places and enjoy the natural long term benefits they provide then some short term resource extraction and lasting environmental impacts and work to revise them for the recreation you want. Besides, the USFS has 265,000 miles of roads and a multi billion dollar maintenance backlog of roads the public can already use and enjoy.

Here is the actual rule:
https://www.federalregister.gov/docu...a-conservation

[toast2266]

but these people have demonstrated that they are activelty hostile to any expenditure of money on infrastructure for bikes.

Not entirely true. Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act, which resulted in the largest influx of funds towards trails in my memory. That act did (and continues to do) more to improve trails and recreational access than any other federal program I can think of. Now, Trump has also screwed a bunch of stuff up and messed with some popular grant programs that funded outdoor access improvements, so it's certainly a mixed bag. But it's not all doom and gloom. Believe it or not, a big chunk of Trump's base is interested in outdoor access.

*I feel somewhat dirty defending Trump. Please don't mistake me for a supporter.

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[Trackhead]

Not entirely true. Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act, which resulted in the largest influx of funds towards trails in my memory. That act did (and continues to do) more to improve trails and recreational access than any other federal program I can think of. Now, Trump has also screwed a bunch of stuff up and messed with some popular grant programs that funded outdoor access improvements, so it's certainly a mixed bag. But it's not all doom and gloom. Believe it or not, a big chunk of Trump's base is interested in outdoor access.

*I feel somewhat dirty defending Trump. Please don't mistake me for a supporter.

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You seem to have above average intelligence. Something rare these days.


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[plugboots]

Not entirely true. Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act, which resulted in the largest influx of funds towards trails in my memory. That act did (and continues to do) more to improve trails and recreational access than any other federal program I can think of. Now, Trump has also screwed a bunch of stuff up and messed with some popular grant programs that funded outdoor access improvements, so it's certainly a mixed bag. But it's not all doom and gloom. Believe it or not, a big chunk of Trump's base is interested in outdoor access.

*I feel somewhat dirty defending Trump. Please don't mistake me for a supporter.

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Exactly how I feel.
I remember Trump signing that bill and I remember thinking the name was a distraction for increased extraction access. I was wrong, and he’s tried to trim back some of the stuff, but nonetheless we’re getting new bridges, etc. in National Parks and I’m pretty amazed. I’ve done a ton of searching. I still can’t figure out why he signed that bill.

[toast2266]

I’ve done a ton of searching. I still can’t figure out why he signed that bill.

Honestly, I think a lot of it is because his shithead sons consider themselves to be hunters / outdoorsmen.

But aside from that, it's broadly popular with bipartisan support, it appeals to his base, it ties in with his whole "infrastructure improvements" shtick, and in the grand scheme of the federal budget, it's cheap. And for the most part, it's not implemented by the forest service; the money flows to private entities. Which both "supports small businesses" and, presumably, allows assorted PAC donors to skim money off the top.

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[civilcoconut]

Toast - I have the same struggle, not everything any admin does is bad. There are always bright spots. I personally think GAOA was an easy bipartisan win for everyone involved, but the Trump admin turned around and implemented fewer projects than planned and immediatley issued executive orders undermining some components of the law as passed (LCWF). At the end of the day GAOA is doing some great things, I even got to work on some of the projects funded by that program.

Also, it&#39;s 2025 now, not 2020 and it&#39;s just not the same admin, not that the first admin had a great record on their goals around the environment. I&#39;m taking what they say and do at face value, which is increased resource extraction and decreased regulatory scrutiny (mercury standards, clean air regulaitons on power plants, etc), deleting data from public facing websites, ignoring science, a national &quot;&quot;emergency&quot; to spur coal production and burning, weakening regulations around NEPA, etc. So forgive me if I think that plucking GAOA out of the totality of their environmental policy looks like cherry picking...

It just feels like everything in this country is just swining from one end of the pendulum every 4 years instead of some reasonable tweaks. Say, like allowing historic use in roadless and WSA until it&#39;s actually declared wilderness by law or reducing the eligible acres due to needed resource extraction for critical industries. Seems totally reasonable. Instead we get this...

[civilcoconut]

And anyways, I think we all know this rule is going away shortly. Not much to stop the train at this point unless somehow Chevron comes into play.

[jono]

And anyways, I think we all know this rule is going away shortly. Not much to stop the train at this point unless somehow Chevron comes into play.

Here in 2024, if Chevron comes into play it's going to be because someone sues the USFS claiming they don't have the authority to declare bicycles "mechanized" after they'd been outside that definition for decades under WA etc.

Stopped clocks come to mind. We had a really good and reasonable admin for 4 years and it would have been a good time to show how reasonable by revisiting the overreach then instead of now.

I think the problem is that every time the pendulum swings the feverish, exultant winners think it's the last time.