Washington, DC — Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) today submitted formal comments opposing the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) plan to rewrite the travel management regulations that govern where motor vehicles may go across the 193-million-acre National Forest System. The plan would push national forests toward more off-road and motorized traffic while removing the standards that protect wildlife, water, and other forest users.

Adopted in response to surging off-road vehicle use and the spread of user-created routes, the Travel Management Rule ended unmanaged cross-country motor vehicle travel on national forests. Each forest and grassland designates the roads, trails, and areas open to motor vehicles, by vehicle class and season, on a free Motor Vehicle Use Map; motorized use off that system is prohibited. Managers must apply “minimization criteria” to limit damage to soil, water, vegetation, and wildlife habitat and to reduce user conflicts, and must use travel analysis to identify the minimum road system the agency needs and can afford to maintain. Nearly every national forest (148 of 154) and all 20 national grasslands have completed their maps.

The USDA notice would eliminate the minimization criteria, replace the “minimum road system” standard with an undefined “adequate and appropriate” standard, and presume that existing routes are open, paired with a duty to consider new routes and an annual review of closed ones. USDA calls it “a uniform national policy favoring increased access.”

“This proposal tells every national forest manager in the country to revisit closed roads every year and look for new ones to build and then conditions the whole thing on money Congress has never appropriated and is not going to appropriate,” said Kevin Hood, executive director of FSEEE, who retired from the Forest Service after more than 20 years. “Access to our national forests isn’t limited by the Travel Management Rule. It’s limited by roads the agency can’t afford to maintain.”

“The Forest Service is proposing to open more roads and trails to motorized traffic while eliminating the employees needed to evaluate, maintain, monitor, and enforce their use. That is a recipe for more environmental destruction and physical danger in our forests,” said Tim Whitehouse, executive director of PEER.

The groups support parts of the proposal, including a full environmental impact statement, GIS-compatible digital maps, simpler clerical map corrections, and objective criteria for mobility devices used by people with disabilities. They urge USDA to adopt those improvements, retain the minimization criteria and minimum road system standard, and analyze the combined effects of this proposal and the Roadless Rule rescission.

###

Read Overview of Travel Management Rules and a Summary of FSEEE-PEER comment letter

Read the full FSEEE–PEER comment letter

Review the USDA notice

About FSEEE: Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics is a national nonprofit of current and former Forest Service employees, scientists, and citizens working to protect national forests and hold the Forest Service accountable to the environmental laws that govern public lands. www.fseee.org

About PEER: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility protects public employees who protect our environment. We are a service organization for environmental and public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement officers and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values. We work with current and former federal, state, local and tribal employees. www.peer.org