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QuickTake:
Two recent federal moves have drawn scrutiny from Lane County environmentalists seeking to protect national forests from logging and development. One proposal to sell public lands has been paused, although proponents are promising to try again. And a new effort seeks to roll back roadless protections in the Willamette and Siuslaw national forests.
National forests like those in Lane County have repeatedly been at the center of recent Trump administration proposals that favor development over conservation.
Most recently, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced plans to repeal a Clinton-era rule that barred road construction in national forests, preserving a third of forest land in the United States. The 2001 Roadless Rule aimed to conserve 58 million acres of undeveloped, wild areas.
The road announcement came on Monday, the same day that another proposal involving national forests — an effort to identify federal lands that could be sold — was paused, at least temporarily. While the public land sale is off the table, the Roadless Rule reversal is the latest in an effort to significantly increase logging, say environmental activists.
For decades, those activists in Eugene and Springfield have worked to help create federal and state plans that set limits for where timber activity happens while protecting many old-growth forests.
About half the land in Lane County is federally owned, mostly by the U.S. Forest Service. A large swath of the nearly 1.7 million acres is within the Willamette and Siuslaw national forests.
About the Roadless Rule
Rollins’ announcement to roll back restrictions carries local implications. Nearly 120,000 acres of national forest lands that touch Lane County are protected under the roadless rule: 86,000 acres in the Willamette and 34,000 acres in the Siuslaw.
These are acres that the U.S. Forest Service has inventoried as roadless areas, which prohibited not only road construction but also timber harvesting.
“The Trump administration’s reckless proposal to roll back the Roadless Rule puts nearly 60 million of acres of public forests at risk of rampant logging and destructive road building. Roadless areas contain much of our last remaining mature and old-growth public forests,” said Grace Brahler, Wildlands Director of Eugene-based Cascadia Wildands, in a written statement.
Cascadia Wildlands staff point to the Flat Country project near the McKenzie River as a recent example of what’s at stake. The U.S. Forest Service canceled the local timber sale in 2022 after community opposition and legal pressure. It targeted nearly 1,000 acres of mature and old-growth Douglas fir and western hemlock — the kind of forest advocates say could once again be vulnerable under Trump’s pro-logging agenda.
Brahler also said that the forests also provide essential wildlife habitat, filter drinking water for millions, and contain fire-resilient trees. In her announcement, Rollins argued that increasing access to these areas with roads would allow for quicker action to reduce wildfire risk.
Some policy leaders have repeatedly criticized the Trump administration’s approach to wildfire management, noting that instead of increasing resources for worsening fire seasons, the administration cut U.S. Forest Service staffing.
Nearly 500 positions were lost in Region 6, which includes the Pacific Northwest. No specific figures are available for national forests in Lane County, including the Willamette and Siuslaw, and it’s unclear how many jobs have since been reinstated.
“If the Trump administration was serious about addressing wildfire and forest management challenges, it would be investing in proven wildfire prevention tools,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, a senior member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in an email to Lookout Eugene-Springfield.
“More roads, which we know increase the probability of fires happening — on top of firing federal employees who fight fire — is only going to increase the risk of devastating infernos,” he said.
Unpacking the public land sale
Public land in Lane County — and throughout the West —would have been eligible for sale under a proposal in the Trump administration’s budget bill, the “One Beautiful Bill Act.”
Within the bill was language to make “mandatory disposal” of public lands, according to a draft of the bill text obtained by Politico.
Under the plan, federal agencies would have been forced to sell 2 million to 3 million acres of public land. Analysts with The Wilderness Society interpreted the measure as meaning nearly 250 million acres across 11 Western states would be eligible to be nominated for sale to meet that mandate, including about 22 million acres in Oregon.
Large swaths of the Siuslaw and Willamette national forests would have been eligible for sale, according to a map developed by the Wilderness Society.
The proposal, introduced by Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah), did not move forward through the budget reconciliation process as of Tuesday. Lee has promised a new plan.
