Crs Report for Congress: National Forest System (NFS) Roadless Area Initiatives: April 18, 2011 - Rl30647

Roadless areas in the National Forest System (NFS) have received special attention for decades. Many want to protect their relatively pristine condition; others want to use the areas in more developed ways. Two different roadless area policies have been offered in the last decade. On January 12, 2001, the Clinton Administration's roadless area policy established a nationwide approach to managing roadless areas in the National Forest System to protect their pristine conditions. The Nationwide Rule, as it will be called in this report, generally prohibited road construction and reconstruction and timber harvesting in 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas, with significant exceptions. The Bush Administration initially postponed the effective date of the Nationwide Rule, then issued its own rule that allowed states to plan how roadless areas were managed. It issued a new rule on May 13, 2005. The State Petition Rule allowed governors to petition the Secretary of Agriculture for a special rule for managing the inventoried roadless areas in their states. Both rules were heavily litigated, with the Ninth Circuit ultimately holding that the Nationwide Rule should be in place, and the Tenth Circuit still considering an appeal as to whether that rule is valid. The first ...