The Trump administration is moving forward with a plan to open up more than 58 million acres of previously protected national forests to development, including 85,000 acres of Tennessee backcountry.
In a Wednesday announcement, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said the federal government is giving the public three weeks to weigh in on the proposal to rescind the federal government’s so-called roadless rule.
Adopted in 2001, the rule has restricted logging, mining, oil drilling and gas extraction in some of the nation’s most remote and untouched public lands — restrictions that the Trump administration is seeking to lift.
The three-week comment period, which began Friday before the Labor Day holiday weekend, ends Sept. 19. Public comment periods for similar federal rule changes have previously been open for a month or more.
Rollins, in a press release, said rescinding the rule was a “common sense” step to remove “burdensome, outdated, one-size-fits-all regulations” that have limited industries that could boost local economies adjacent to public lands.