Logging, we might note, involves a renewable resource - trees. Here in the Great Land, the implementation of the so-called "Roadless Rule" in 2001 hampered logging in places like the Tongass National Forest. Yes, in a national forest; part of the justification for the national forest system was the preservation and availability of a strategic asset, timber. The Biden administration('s autopen) enforced the "Roadless Rule" with vigor, and that rule was used to lock up 58.5 million acres of National Forest land.
On Monday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke L. Rollins announced that the Roadless Rule has gone the way of the dodo. //
Rescinding this rule will remove prohibitions on road construction, reconstruction, and timber harvest on nearly 59 million acres of the National Forest System, allowing for fire prevention and responsible timber production.
This rule is overly restrictive and poses real harm to millions of acres of our national forests. In total, 30% of National Forest System lands are impacted by this rule. For example, nearly 60% of forest service land in Utah is restricted from road development and is unable to be properly managed for fire risk. In Montana, it is 58%, and in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the largest in the country, 92% is impacted. This also hurts jobs and economic development across rural America. Utah alone estimates the roadless rule alone creates a 25% decrease in economic development in the forestry sector. //
Bogia
14 hours ago
One of my first jobs in the 90s was installing flooring. I learned way back then that there are more trees in the world BECAUSE of the hardwood flooring industry. There are very responsible ways to harvest this truly renewable resource. Unlike, say, the strip-mining methods used for rare earth minerals that are so precious to our green energy cultist friends. //
Musicman
15 hours ago
Here in New Mexico we have had millions of acres burned over the last 10 years. I'm not suggesting that was because of the particular rule you mention, but rather the attitude that created that rule: better to let forests burn and add to air pollution and "global warming" than let Americans use that lumber to build stuff. Because that is what it comes down to. I'm not a builder but I have done enough diy stuff to have watched the price of wood go up and up and up, while the quality gets worse and worse. Doesn't it make sense to harvest enough wood from our national forests to prevent or at least greatly mitigate these disasters? //
Yes Hemp Now
16 hours ago edited
Better late then never. The idiocy started in California over 30 years ago when the Sierra Club lobbied to stop harvesting our forests. The result is permanent destruction of what was the most beautiful forests in the world located in California. Natural fires happened, slow and meandering in the 60's usually ignited by lightening burning the pine needles mostly. If those fires lit by nature in a forest floor that was maintained through natural function, they were controlled with a couple of fire trucks if they threatened structures. The "do gooders" let the forest over grow and that is why we see the wild fires we have for decades now. After thes fires nothing grew back except manzanita and hand planted trees. The fires burned so fiercely it destroyed the topsoil. Save what we have and re-plant what was destroyed. Grow it and manage it. This is good news Thank You Secretary Rollins!
