4 Million Acres of California's Public Lands Are Road-Free. Trump Wants to Change That

A 2025 proposal from President Donald Trump’s administration would open up nearly 4 million acres of land in California to logging and road construction — by rescinding the so-called “Roadless Rule” law.

With the deadline for giving public comment on Friday, advocates for protecting public lands are urging members of the public to speak up in defense of these wilderness places. But what’s really at stake — and why is the Trump administration going after roadless lands?

We break down the Roadless Rule, the debate around these lands and what a change in the law might mean for public lands in California.

Jump straight to:

• Why does the Trump administration want to open up these areas to roads?
• What public lands are at stake?
• Is this really going to help with wildfire mitigation?
• What happens next, and how can I weigh in?

What is the Trump administration proposing and why?

Almost a quarter of a century ago, the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule identified nearly 45 million acres of U.S. National Forest land where the construction of roads would be prohibited — effectively making timber logging and harvesting impossible in these spaces.

The 2001 rule was first instituted by former President Bill Clinton, with the intent of not only preserving national forests but also protecting vital ecosystems and watersheds throughout the country. By bisecting wilderness areas, roads are known to be harmful to ecosystems by separating wildlife, rerouting water and introducing humans and machinery to a landscape that isn’t used to these interruptions.

Earlier this summer, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, led by Secretary Brooke Rollins, submitted a “notice of intent” to rescind the Roadless Rule.

The change, the administration claims, is to help prevent wildfires — both by opening up access for firefighters in these densely forested areas and also to perform forest management, like forest thinning, to help reduce the fire risk in these forests.

If the Roadless Rule is rescinded, what lands might be affected?

In California alone, 4 million acres would potentially be opened up to roadbuilding. Not all Forest Service land is roadless, but in California, roadless lands constitute 21% of Forest Service land, and 4% of the whole state overall. 

That includes lands surrounding Lake Tahoe, Yosemite National Park and other parts of the Sierra Nevada and Sierra Foothills. Farther north, areas like Mendocino, the Trinity Alps and Castle Crags could be opened up with new roads. The law also covers parts of the Big Sur and the San Gabriel Mountains to the south.

An analysis by the National Parks Conservation Association found that 30% of the affected lands are within 30 miles of national parks, including along the Pacific Crest Trail in California. The Pacific Crest Trail Association said around 9% of the trail, which stretches from Canada to Mexico through some of the West Coast’s most rugged lands, would be affected.

While the Trump administration argues building roads and strategically logging forests could reduce wildfire risks in these areas, public lands advocates like the Outdoor Alliance, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Sierra Club say the wildfire argument is a red herring for the administration’s real goal: to open up more public lands for extraction.

Advocates also point to studies that show fires are much more likely to start in areas with roads.

“Everyone who cares for America’s national parks and public lands should be deeply alarmed about attempts to dismantle the roadless rule,” wrote Beau Kiklis, associate director of energy and landscape conservation for the NPCA, in a statement to KQED. “This is nothing short of another brazen attempt to sell off America’s public lands, by opening up these forest lands for industrial logging, roadbuilding and other development.”

Environmental advocates also worry that these lands being opened to roads and logging may affect sources of clean water — like freshwater rivers across California — that millions of people rely on for their drinking water.

What do wildfire and forestry experts say?

Supporters of Trump’s proposal say that while humans start 95% of wildfires in California and worldwide — and roads undoubtedly allow people to travel into the wilderness — roads can also play a part in wildfire mitigation and firefighting. Fires need to be accessed to be fought, and the roadways themselves can often serve as firebreaks, Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said, saying 8 million acres of roadless areas have burned since 2001. Some experts even say that a “surgical” approach to building new roads could be beneficial.

The Hotshot Wakeup, a podcast and blog run by wildland firefighters, spoke out in defense of maintaining existing roads, saying unmaintained wilderness roads often set back firefighters — but did not weigh in on whether the Roadless Rule should be rescinded.

But opponents of the potential repeal say the rule already allows roads to be constructed if one is “needed to protect health and safety in cases of imminent danger, such as wildfire.” And one former Forest Service chief told NPR that the rule also includes exceptions for small-scale logging in the case of habitat protection or to reduce wildfire risk.

A CalMatters analysis found that the California Forestry Association, while in support of the Trump administration’s proposed repeal, doesn’t see the Roadless Rule as a “significant impediment” to fire management.

What happens next, and how can I weigh in?

As part of the public process under the National Environmental Policy Act, the rescission is subject to a public comment period, which ends on Friday, Sept. 19. Public comments can be submitted via the Federal Register, the federal government’s journal.

Once public comments are in, the Forest Service must prepare an environmental impact statement, which the agency said it aims to do by March 2026. That, too, will be subject to public comment before the administration can fully end the rule by late 2026.

Public comment is part of the NEPA process, and environmental reviews can slow down implementation of a policy so much that it never gets implemented, but the comments themselves can’t directly block a proposal like this one.

But past challenges to the rule have succeeded in the courts, and organizations like Earthjustice have vowed to continue their fight to maintain the rule. 

In fact, the rule has faced legal challenges since its inception in 2001, including pushback by former President George W. Bush’s administration and the first Trump administration, and multiple legal challenges from individual states, which sought to establish their own rules. So far, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has not weighed in on this attempt to rescind the rule or whether California would protect its roadless wilderness in other ways.