A USDA proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule would remove protections from about 4 million acres of Utah national forest, including Wasatch land near Park City.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published the proposed rule Aug. 20 to eliminate the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which prohibits road construction and timber harvesting in inventoried roadless areas on National Forest System lands. The original rule covered 58.5 million acres nationwide. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the proposal Aug. 18, saying the rule has frustrated land managers and blocked wildfire risk reduction.

The Forest Service's Utah inventory counts approximately 4.01 million roadless acres in the state, TownLift reported. Of those, about 3.57 million acres sit in areas where existing forest plans already allow road construction. The Roadless Rule is the only federal restriction currently blocking it.

Inventoried roadless areas stretch through the Wasatch and Uinta mountains, including national forest lands near Park City, Kamas and Oakley, according to a Forest Service map. Wasatch trails such as Mineral Fork, Dog Lake and Gloria Falls fall within or adjacent to those protected zones, conservation groups told TownLift in September 2025.

Other popular destinations, including Red Pine Lake, Mount Timpanogos and Brighton's Lake Mary, Martha and Catherine, sit inside congressionally designated wilderness and would not be affected.

What the repeal would change

Under the proposal, USDA would eliminate the nationwide roadless restrictions and hand management decisions back to individual national forests. The Forest Service said the rescission would not by itself authorize any ground-disturbing projects. Existing forest plans and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) would still govern future road or timber proposals.

Conservation advocates disagree with that framing.

"If we start cutting roads through those, you're going to lose the backcountry characteristic," Dani Poirier, director of the Wasatch Backcountry Alliance, told Backcountry Magazine. The alliance estimates more than 300,000 Wasatch acres carry roadless designations.

Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said in the USDA announcement that more than 40% of inventoried roadless areas, primarily in the West, have high or very high wildfire hazard potential. Only 5% have received hazardous fuels reduction treatments since 2014, Schultz said.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox backed the proposal in the USDA press release, calling the Roadless Rule a "one-size-fits-all federal policy" that has limited local land managers for 25 years.

Steve Ellis, president of the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense, offered a different view. Repealing the rule could add to an already $6 billion Forest Service road maintenance backlog, Ellis told NPR.

Recreation and wildfire tradeoffs

The stakes go beyond land management. USDA's own analysis acknowledges that greater public access can increase the potential for human-caused wildfire ignitions. New roads could also bring noise, visible infrastructure and temporary closures to recreation areas. Over the longer term, the agency said road-based recreation could expand in some locations while reducing backcountry solitude.

Nationally, USDA estimates about 18.2 million acres could become candidates for permanent road construction. More than 95% of affected roadless areas are in 10 Western states, including Utah.

USDA received more than 220,000 comment letters from more than 625,000 individuals and organizations during an initial comment period that began in August 2025.

How to comment

Public comments on the proposed rule and draft environmental impact statement are due by midnight Monday, Sept. 21, at Regulations.gov. No response from Summit County Council, Park City Municipal Council or the Park City mayor's office appeared in available public records as of publication.