Bush Administration Rolls Back Rule on Building Forest Roads

By FELICITY BARRINGER

WASHINGTON, May 5 - The Bush administration on Thursday supplanted a Clinton-era rule banning road construction in nearly 60 million acres of national forest with a complex prescription for state-by state decisions on which areas should retain protections.

The new rule gives governors a primary role in making recommendations. If the governors choose not to take the opportunity in the next 18 months, the Forest Service may begin an analysis of whether and where activities requiring roads, like logging and mining, would be appropriate. The final decision on the status of all 56.5 million acres once protected as roadless will rest with the federal government.

"Our approach will protect roadless values," Mark Rey, the under secretary of agriculture in charge of the Forest Service, said in a conference call on Thursday. "It's my prediction that many of the state rules will protect the same areas as the 2001 forest rule."

Before the earlier rule was adopted as President Bill Clinton was leaving office in January 2001, federal rules set aside about 24 million acres, prohibiting road development there. These remain protected. But as a result of Thursday's decision, about 32 million acres are now potentially subject to development pressure.