Commissioners to oppose rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule

Teton County’s Board of County Commissioners is set Monday to approve and submit a formal comment letter urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to reject a proposed repeal of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and instead select the “No Action Alternative” that keeps the rule in place Roadless Rule Comment Letter.

In the draft letter, the board argues that rescinding the rule would remove a national baseline for roadless protections across “approximately 58.5 million acres,” including “approximately 315,575 acres in Teton County,” and asks the Forest Service to stick with the current framework rather than reopening it at the project and forest plan level Roadless Rule Comment Letter. The county has taken this lane before. Commissioners adopted Resolution 18-040 in 2018 to lay out a local position on Forest Service lands that tracks the roadless rule’s core approach, including limited exceptions rather than broad new road-building authority.