Support for a once bipartisan piece of wildfire-focused legislation has faltered after Republican lawmakers added a repeal of the Roadless Rule.
Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) proposed the amendment to the Wildfire Prevention Act, which would increase fuels treatments in federal forests and had support from both Democrats and Republicans before the amendment. The nullification of the rule dissolved that support.
The “Roadless Rule” prohibits new road construction and intensive logging in millions of acres of federal forest. The Trump administration has been targeting the rule for years, with the current Forest Service leadership announcing a draft proposal to rescind it in June 2025.
The inclusion of the Roadless Rule’s repeal triggered criticism from Democratic senators on the committee, with Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) saying the bill had become a “Trojan Horse” for the repeal.
“We took a previously, largely bipartisan, constructive wildfire effort, and now it has become a partisan pitched battle over repealing roadless areas,” Heinrich said. “That is a poster child for how not to get successful legislation done, and I am disappointed.”
Lee previously called the Roadless Rule an “environmental disaster” and claimed the rule hampers forest thinning and fire prevention. But the rule’s text does allow prescribed burning and fuel treatments.
The Wildfire Prevention Act passed the committee along party lines, 11-9, but Democratic lawmakers said the inclusion of the repeal guarantees the larger bill’s failure.
Numerous environment-focused organizations immediately condemned the repeal’s inclusion in the Wildfire Prevention Act, including Environment America, the National Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club, the BlueRibbon Coalition, and the Defenders of Wildlife. The major proponents of the Roadless Rule’s repeal are timber associations, which said the rule is based on false and unscientific premises.
Research has repeatedly found that ending the roadless rule would likely make wildfires more common, rather than reducing the fires.
READ MORE: End to landmark roadless rule will make wildfires more likely
3 Comments
Would we expect any less from Mike Lee?
I was not surprised that Mike Lee would do something sneaky. Not surprised that Trump would sell out public land. I was surprised that every western senator and congressman in the republican delegation would meekly go along. Republican has become synonymous with cowardly.
It is a travesty that we have an administration that is more concerned with money than with protecting our National Forests and wild areas.