By Jim Sims, Special to the News
May 23, 2005

The new "Roadless Rule" recently unveiled by federal officials in Washington, D.C., isn't like most federal regulations that get branded on the West's hindquarters by the federal bureaucrats out East.

This one actually assumes that Westerners are smart enough to play a role in managing our lands.

In short, President Bush's new Roadless Rule is a big victory for the American West, for the philosophy of multiple use of federal lands, and for all those who support a common-sense balance between conservation and economic growth.

Unfortunately, the Rocky Mountain News completely missed the point of this new regulation in its recent coverage ("Roadless lands opened," May 6).

Instead of empowering unelected bureaucrats in Washington, the president's new Roadless Rule empowers citizens at the state and local level to help determine which national forest lands should be preserved as "roadless areas." Instead of top-down management, it promotes grass-roots involvement. Instead of land use deals made behind closed doors with special interests, it gives citizens a real seat at the decision-making table:

• Governors have 18 months to petition the U.S. Department of Agriculture with state-specific plans identifying proposed roadless areas in their state.

• Petitions may include ways to protect public health and safety, reduce wildfire risks to communities and critical wildlife habitat, maintain critical infrastructure (such as dams and utilities), and ensure that citizens have access to private property.

• If the USDA accepts a petition, the U.S. Forest Service will work with the state to develop a state-specific rule.

• The process will include any required National Environmental Policy Act analysis and will invite further public input during a notice-and-comment period.

• If a state chooses not to file a petition, inventoried roadless areas within that state will continue to be managed in accordance with each national forest's land and resource management plan.

Just as important as what the Roadless Rule does is what it does not do:

• Unlike the previous rule, which was stuck down by the federal courts, this rule does not violate federal law by creating de facto wilderness outside the congressional approval process laid out in the federal Wilderness Act.

• It does not allow unelected bureaucrats in Washington to dictate to the West which lands make sense for roadless designation without state and local input.

• It does not "roll back" protections for roadless areas. There was no "Roadless Rule" in place when the new rule was announced on May 5. The previous rule, developed by the Clinton administration, had been struck down by the courts. The new USDA rule puts roadless area protections in place where none existed.

The previous rule was deeply flawed in several ways.

For one, a significant portion of the land designated by Clinton's political appointees wasn't roadless at all.

In other cases, the targeted lands had important economic mineral reserves. Incredibly, the old rule proposed surrounding more than 1 million acres of private lands with roadless areas, cutting off access to those private lands.

In short, the old rule allowed Washington to dictate these decisions to states and localities. Special-interest groups loved that approach because it gave them a dull blade to carve up new wilderness areas without having to get congressional approval and without meaningful local input.

In sharp contrast, the Bush administration's rule goes the other way. It doesn't restrict how many acres can be designated as roadless. It just says that Washington can't unilaterally force such a momentous decision down our throats here in the West.

Here is another reason this model works well: Local input increases the likelihood that the public will accept the final product. Collaboration at the front end often means less confrontation at the back end.

This new Roadless Rule isn't perfect. Washington still retains much of the final say on roadless area designations. But for Colorado and the West, with our huge stretches of federal lands, this new rule will help us more successfully balance environmental values with policies that encourage greater economic prosperity for all.

Jim Sims is executive director of the Western Business Roundtable, a nonprofit business trade association. He also served as director of communications for President George W. Bush's energy policy task force.

See original article Rocky Mountain News: Opinion Roadless Rule