Idaho was the only state exempted from U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s May 28 announcement that no new roads will be allowed for at least one year in 49 million acres of national forest without his approval. The Obama administration let the state’s rules for roadless areas stand.
Idaho is exempt because last year it submitted its own national forest plan for Idaho’s 9.3 million acres – the second largest roadless expanse in the United States, behind Alaska – including land that could be used for phosphate mining, logging, and road construction. Idaho’s plan largely bans new roads, but opens 405,000 acres of roadless lands to full forest uses. The Idaho rule designates 250 roadless areas and establishes five management themes that guide mineral development, timber cutting, and road construction.
The U.S. Forest Service says it has a $660 million backlog of road maintenance and improvement projects in Idaho, where it has 34,000 miles of national forest roads. The Idaho plan took effect last October based on a state proposal drafted in 2006 under then-Gov. Jim Risch, who is now a U.S. senator. It was crafted by wild land users and interest groups to include “higher levels of protection for some lands that truly deserved it and allowed multiple use of other lands where it fit,” Risch said. “This is how conflicts in public lands management should be resolved, and not by politics and a ‘one size fits all’ approach by those in Washington, D.C.”
USDA spokeswoman Chris Mather said Idaho was exempted because officials “created a solution to the problem that is the impetus for us doing this.” For the rest of the nation, the one-year moratorium reinstates a Clinton-era rule and effectively halts the building of new roads – mostly at mining and timber sites – in remote national forests.
“This is a way to provide some clarity and consistency while we develop a long-term roadless plan,” Mather said of Vilsack’s interim directive. “These conflicting court cases have created confusion, and we want to eliminate any inconsistency and, more importantly, ensure the decisions that are made are reflective of President Obama’s commitment to protecting forests.”
Gov. Butch Otter’s office said the governor hopes the Obama administration’s decision shows confidence in the collaborative process used in Idaho to solve a difficult environmental problem.
The Earthjustice law firm last January filed a lawsuit on behalf of The Wilderness Society, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and Lands Council to block Idaho’s roadless rules.
Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen welcomed Vilsack’s announcement, but said the Forest Service should stop the expansion of the J.R. Simplot Co.’s Smoky Canyon Mine into roadless areas of the Caribou-Targhee National Forest in Idaho. Van Noppen said Idaho should not be exempt from the interim directive.
The fact Idaho isn’t included seems to be a good sign that the Obama administration won’t override environmental policies crafted with the involvement of community and industry stakeholders, said Jonathan Oppenheimer of the Idaho Conservation League, which backed the Idaho roadless plan with Trout Unlimited, sportsmen, and public land users.
Before President Bill Clinton left office in January 2001, the Clinton administration imposed the federal Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which banned development and road building on nearly one-third of the nation’s 192 million acres of national forest land. President George W. Bush’s administration repealed that rule in 2005, allowing states to petition the federal government with their own management plans for individual forests. Federal district courts have issued contradictory rulings on the issue. A 2006 decision by a California federal magistrate judge upheld the Roadless Rule, while in 2008 a federal judge in Wyoming issued a permanent injunction against it.