USDA to end rule that kept logging from national forests. What’s it mean for Idaho?
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced this week that it plans to remove protections that have prohibited logging and road construction on national forest land across the country, but much of Idaho will be protected thanks to a nearly 20-year-old rule meant to appease local conservationists and the timber industry.
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins called the 2001 Roadless Rule “overly restrictive” and said many of the 58.5 million acres protected nationwide are at greater risk for wildfire. Idaho replaced the federal rule, implemented at the end of President Bill Clinton’s administration, with a law proposed in 2006 under then-Gov. Jim Risch, who now represents the state in the U.S. Senate.
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