Tongass National Forest - Roadless Controversy

Roadless Controversy

The most controversial logging in the Tongass has involved the roadless areas. Southeast Alaska is an extensive landscape, with communities scattered across the archipelago on different islands, isolated from each other and the mainland road system. The road system that exists in the region is in place because of the resource extraction history in the region, primarily established by the Forest Service to enable timber harvest. Once in place, these roads serve to connect local communities and visitors to recreation, hunting, fishing, and subsistence opportunities long into the future. Essentially, these roads serve to provide essential infrastructure for local communities. However, installing roads in the vast wilderness areas of the Tongass is also a point of controversy for many in the American public, as reflected in the roadless area conservation movement.

The Tongass National Forest was included in the Roadless Initiative passed on 5 January 2001, during the last days of the Bill Clinton Administration, and the initiative prevented the construction of new roads in currently roadless areas of United States national forests.

However, several governors of western states soon joined forces with the timber industry to overturn the roadless policy. The George W. Bush Administration has declined to defend the policy in the courts and the U.S. Forest Service has largely exempted the Tongass from roadless protections.

In September 2006, a landmark court decision overturned Bush's repeal of the Roadless Rule, reverting to the 2001 roadless area protections established under president Clinton. However, the Tongass remained exempt from that ruling, and it is currently unclear what the fate of its vast roadless areas will be.

In June 2007, U.S. House members added an amendment to the appropriations bill to block federally funded road building in Tongass National Forest. Proponents of the amendment said that the federal timber program in Tongass is a dead loss for taxpayers, costing some $30 million annually, and noted that the Forest Service faces an estimated $900 million road maintenance backlog in the forest. Supporters of the bipartisan amendment included the Republicans for Environmental Protection. Representative Steve Chabot, an Ohio Republican who sponsored the amendment, said "I am not opposed to logging when it's done on the timber company's dime...But in this case, they are using the American taxpayer to subsidize these 200 jobs at the tune of $200,000 per job. That just makes no sense."

In March 2011, Judge John Sedwick from the Anchorage federal district court, in his ruling, reinstated the Roadless Rule on roadless areas in the Tongass, but with three of the Forest Service's recent timber projects excluded from that ruling "without prejudice." Those projects were Iyouktug Timber Sales ROD (record of decision), Scratchings Timber Sale ROD II, and Kuiu Timber Sale Area ROD. The Order concluded in part:

"Because the reasons proffered by the Forest Service in support of the Tongass Exemption were implausible, contrary to the evidence in the record, and contrary to Ninth Circuit precedent, the court concludes that promulgation of the Tongass Exemption was arbitrary and capricious.

“With the passage of the Roadless Rule, inventoried roadless areas, ‘for better or worse, more committed to pristine wilderness, and less amendable to road development for purposes permitted by the Forest Service.’”

While the Forest Service may reevaluate its approach to roadless area management in the Tongass, it must comply with the requirements of the APA in doing so."