Roadless Rule Attack in the Senate

[MTBackroads]

Are you trying to sell him a case of beer or talk about the roadless rule? My god man

He is FOS. What is your take on the roadless rule from Indiana?

 

[RockAndSage]

Last night Sen. Lee introduced an amendment to s.140, the Wildfire Protection Act, which will overturn the 2001 roadless rule and prevents the USFS from putting any similar rule in place in the future. text here. This passed SENR Committee on party lines 11-9, so please, call your senators and ask for this to be removed from s.140 or for them to vote no on s.140. This will severely impact how the majority of us hunt and interact with our landscape.

It's amazing how many wildland firefighters think the roadless rule is criminally negligent and damaging to their ability to do their jobs, weather through killing access, or water transportation, or especially in providing a network of maintained, ready-made firebreaks they can use in commanding and executing suppression strategy on an incident.

Unmaintained roadless forests are not some romantic paradise to play The Mighty Backcountry Hunter in. They are giant fuel bombs.

And when they go off, they don't recover for decades - because even the very mycology of the soil is burned to bare mineral earth. These forests are fire adapted, and part of that means having less density - they need management and/or regular burns. To do that safely requires roads.

It's stunning how many people fall for the mask of benevolence in things that remove humans from the landscape. The same people organizing these campaigns to restrict access are the same people organizing wolf reintroduction, getting anti-hunters on state wildlife boards, passing anti-gun laws, closing farms in the EU, and forcing everyone into urbanized landscapes and electric vehicles. This is not an isolated issue for the people organizing and funding it, even if the local полезные идиоты on the ground they're using keep falling for that mask of benevolence.

I want safe, accessible, healthy forests. Put in and maintain the roads.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

The roadless rule prevented the building of new roads in areas that didn't have any. Thats it.

It never gated or closed a single road.

It doesn't take a gate to make a road unusable. I don't know how many I've seen here in WA that have been disabled by rock slides, mud slides, creek damage and fires that brought down so many trees that the NFS never fixed or cleaned up. Plus there's many that have just been ignored for so long they are unusable. Is that part of this bill? Maybe not. Probably a different pot of money knowing our government.

 

[MTtrout]

I am saying that I am open to some revision on the roadless rule to allow select logging and clearing, forest management, allow electric tools to be used for trail clearing, etc.

Seeing beetle killed deadfall forests everywhere burn like crazy doesn’t feel like it’s helping much. Regenerative, thoughtful logging is a great option in the right forest and could hopefully secure funding for more projects.

Do I think that’s Mike Lees intent ? NOPE
Do I need to read Mike Lees entire plan to know it’s bullshit ? NOPE

Sure, but if we can’t do that on the road areas we already have, how would opening up more roads, into even less productive areas, help? It seems like our thoughts might be similar in forest management but let’s accomplish this where we have established roads first.

There doesn’t seem like much logging potential in beetles killed areas. Salvage at best. Beetle kill is already throughout road areas that we are already have.

 

[satchamo]

He is FOS. What is your take on the roadless rule from Indiana?

I mean going off your hot headed posts, it seems as if no one who wasn’t 26 in 2001 or lives in Montana can have knowledge or an opinion on the subject.

 

[MTBackroads]

I mean going off your hot headed posts, it seems as if no one who wasn’t 26 in 2001 or lives in Montana can have knowledge or an opinion on the subject.

Lol, calling out a liar does ruffle some feathers.
How many miles of FS roads are in Indiana?

 

[Ten Bears]

Sure, but if we can’t do that on the road areas we already have, how would opening up more roads, into even less productive areas, help? It seems like our thoughts might be similar in forest management but let’s accomplish this where we have established roads first.

There doesn’t seem like much logging potential in beetles killed areas. Salvage at best. Beetle kill is already throughout road areas that we are already have.

A lot of the roads we already have are barely roads anymore. A few have better explained above the reasons for new roads, maintaining existing, etc.

I don’t view logging negatively in regards to forests. I think the negative viewpoints that were attached to logging in the 80/90s are part of the reason so many forests are dead tinder boxes today. If clearing beetle kill deadfall to plant and regenerate or selectively logging proper areas prevent more swaths of dead forest I am all for it. Even if that takes adding or maintaining some roads.

There has to be a balance.