The U.S. Forest Service is accepting public comments on its proposal to rescind the national 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule — a policy affecting more than 44 million acres of National Forest System lands, including significant areas across California's 18 National Forests.

Comments close September 21. CORVA recommends submitting by September 17.

CORVA supports rescission of the nationwide rule, provided that future decisions continue to protect real environmental resources while returning meaningful authority to individual National Forests. Conditions in the Sierra Nevada, the North Coast, Southern California and the eastern forests are not the same, and a single nationwide prohibition written more than two decades ago cannot account for local wildfire risk, forest health, transportation needs or recreation demand.

Be clear about what this is. Rescission does not automatically reopen a single closed road or trail. Existing Forest Plans, Motor Vehicle Use Maps, Travel Management decisions, Wilderness designations and environmental laws all remain in force. What it does is remove a national regulatory barrier that shapes future decisions — and it creates an opening for our community to be at the table when those decisions get made.

This takes two steps, and both matter.

STEP 1 — File your official comment in the federal docket. This is the only submission that enters the administrative record: https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FS-2025-0001-223869

STEP 2 — Send your letter to your members of Congress using the form below.

Personalize it. Name the forest you actually use — Los Padres, Sequoia, Sierra, Stanislaus, San Bernardino, Plumas, Shasta-Trinity, whichever is yours — and say what you do there and what access, wildfire or route connectivity has looked like firsthand. A few honest sentences from a real user outweigh a thousand identical form letters.

Public Lands FOR the People — Not FROM the People!

Support Local Forest Management and Responsible Access

The Forest Service is taking public comments on rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule. CORVA members: file your comment and send your letter before September 21.

I am a constituent and a public-lands recreationist writing about the U.S. Forest Service's proposed rescission of the national 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, Docket FS-2025-0001. I have submitted a comment supporting the proposal, and I am asking for your support as this rulemaking moves forward.

California has 18 National Forests and enormous variation in wildfire risk, terrain, forest condition and recreation use. Decisions about roads, fuels treatment, emergency access and recreation infrastructure are made better at the forest level, with local knowledge and real public participation, than through a single nationwide prohibition written more than two decades ago.

My interest here is access and management, not deregulation for its own sake. Existing environmental laws, Forest Plans and Travel Management decisions should continue to apply. What I want is for our forests to be actively managed and for legal public access — including responsible motorized access — to be treated as a legitimate multiple use rather than a problem to be eliminated.

I would ask that you encourage USDA and the Forest Service to ensure that recreation access, rural community impacts and wildfire resilience are all weighed as this rulemaking is finalized, and that local stakeholders are meaningfully involved in the forest-level decisions that follow.

USFS-Roadless-Rescission-Federal-2026

California Off Road Vehicle Association

Please Support Local Forest Decision-Making and Public Access

I am writing as a constituent about the Forest Service rulemaking to rescind the national 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, Docket FS-2025-0001.

Rural California communities near National Forest land depend on recreation access economically as well as culturally. Visitors who come to ride, camp, hunt, fish and explore buy fuel, food, lodging, parts and services in towns that have few other economic engines. When access disappears, that spending goes with it — and it rarely comes back.

At the same time, these same landscapes carry extraordinary wildfire risk, and the road systems that support recreation are frequently the same ones that support fire response, fuels work and emergency evacuation.

I am asking you to pay attention to how this rulemaking is implemented at the forest level. Specifically: that recreation access and rural economic impact be genuinely analyzed rather than treated as an afterthought; that closure be a last resort after mitigation, seasonal restriction and rerouting have been considered; and that OHV organizations, counties and local user groups get a real seat at the table in the planning decisions that follow.

Oversight Request: Recreation Access in the Roadless Rule Rulemaking

I am a constituent writing in support of the Forest Service's proposal to rescind the national 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, Docket FS-2025-0001, and I want to speak specifically to wildfire.

California has spent the last decade learning what happens when forests go unmanaged and access is allowed to disappear. Road systems are working infrastructure. They carry firefighters and equipment, they support fuels reduction and prescribed fire, and they enable evacuation, search and rescue, utility maintenance and post-fire recovery. When those roads are gone or impassable, response is slower and more dangerous for everyone.

Forest managers need enough flexibility to do hazardous-fuels reduction, vegetation management and restoration where it is scientifically and operationally appropriate. A uniform national prohibition applied identically from Washington to every forest in the country makes that harder.

Access and conservation are not opposites. Properly designed and maintained roads and trails support responsible recreation while providing the infrastructure land managers and emergency responders depend on.

I am asking you to support an outcome that prioritizes wildfire prevention, forest health and emergency access, and that requires management alternatives — seasonal restrictions, rerouting, hardening, signage, enforcement — to be considered before any permanent road or trail closure.