I left this Comment earlier today opposing repeal of the Roadless Rule. The Comment period has been shortened to Friday, September 19, 2025.
As I said, I left this Comment in opposition to repeal of the Roadless Rule.
Do you think differently?
You can leave your own Comment at regulations.gov. The Docket ID Number and the RIN are given to you below. You now have all the information you need to leave your own Comment.
Thank you.
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Re: Docket ID No. FS-2025-0001-0001.
You also identify this Notice as:
RIN 0596-AD66.
"Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation; National Forest System Lands."
This Comment concerns your captioned Department of Agriculture/Forest Service Notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement.
I have had the experience of hiking through forest until I reached roads under construction. There the forest ended. The forest never comes back, and sometimes the roads are built. Sometimes the construction stops where it began, but the forest is gone regardless of whether the road is finished.
Do you think differently?
The experience of road construction finalizing forest annihilation, as I have had, should be part of your proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule. It is not and so I add it in this Comment. Whether you are aware of such experiences, or whether you yourselves have had such experiences, your proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule is not informed by these experiences. It should be.
Do you think differently?
In my home State of Florida, a significant part of the Apalachicola National Forest will be affected by repeal of the Roadless Rule. Long Bay is in the Apalachicola National Forest. The Forest Service designated this as a Roadless Area. This too should be factored into your proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule. It has not been factored in, and so I raise it too in this Comment.
Whether you yourselves have walked the Apalachicola National Forest is not the point. (If you have, you have clearly not allowed the experience to affect you.) It is natural and free there, indicative of the "old Florida" before development came and "put up a parking lot" as the Joni Mitchell song says.
That is worth conserving. That is why it has been conserved. Until now.
Do you think differently?
For all these reasons, whether taken separately or together, your Notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement to repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule should be withdrawn or, if not withdrawn, it should be rejected by any reviewing Court and by the people.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this Comment.
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