Congress moves to gut 25-year forest protection, opening 58M acres to industry

What it does

This bill nullifies the 2001 Roadless Rule, which protected roughly 58 million acres of National Forest from road construction, and mandates the Secretary of Agriculture to build roads on National Forest lands for restoration, fuel reduction, and other purposes. The primary beneficiaries are timber, mining, and energy extraction industries that depend on road access to federal forests; ordinary citizens lose protections against industrial development in roadless areas and face potential environmental degradation.

Why we flagged it

The bill's core function is to remove a conservation rule and mandate road construction on federal forests. While framed around restoration and fuel reduction, the mechanism directly opens protected lands to industrial access—timber, mining, and energy sectors. The stated purposes (restoration, hazardous fuels reduction) are legitimate but serve as the legal vehicle for broader deregulation.

• Requirement to construct roads 'to carry out the intent of the Act of June 4, 1897' (16 U.S.C. 473–482, 551) is substantively unrelated to roadless-rule nullification and appears designed to resurrect 19th-century timber-access authority.

What the text implies

• Nullifying the Roadless Rule removes a blanket conservation standard and replaces it with case-by-case discretion—lowering the bar for road approval and shifting burden of proof from industry (justify access) to conservationists (block each project).
• The bill's framing around 'restoration' and 'hazardous fuels reduction' may be used to justify roads that primarily serve timber extraction or mining, since those activities can be characterized as forest management.
• Removing the Roadless Rule eliminates a predictable, uniform protection across 58 million acres; future administrations can more easily expand road networks without new legislation, making this a one-way ratchet toward development.
• The bill does not require the Secretary to prioritize conservation or limit road density; it only mandates construction 'as Sec. determines necessary,' giving the executive branch near-total discretion to approve roads for listed purposes.

Who it affects

Ordinary citizens lose a 25-year-old environmental protection that shielded roadless forests from industrial extraction and development. While the bill frames road-building around restoration and fuel reduction, it removes a blanket conservation rule and substitutes discretionary authority—creating legal and practical pathways for extractive industries to access previously protected lands. The public bears environmental costs (habitat loss, watershed degradation, recreation access loss) while pr

Who stands to gain

• timber companies
• mining companies
• energy extraction firms (oil, gas, renewable energy development)
• heavy equipment and construction contractors
• logging equipment manufacturers

Named in the bill

Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, National Forest System, Roadless Rule (2001), Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974, Ms. Hageman, Mr. Downing, Ms. Maloy, Mr. Stauber, Mr. Tiffany

Where it stands

4 cosponsors: 4 Republicans.

• Feb 25, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
• Feb 25, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Natural Resources and House Committee on Agriculture · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Agriculture, and in addition to the Committee on Natural Resources, for a period…”
• May 21, 2026 — Hearing held · Congress.gov: “Subcommittee Hearings Held”

Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.

Money around this bill

5 lobbying clients named this bill on 5 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $895,724 in lobbying spend. A filing names 33 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.

More lobbying clients named this bill than 78% of bills with at least one filing.

Harriet Hageman, the sponsor, reported $669,573 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.

• Specialty Equipment Market Association — $395,000 on 1 filing
• League of Conservation Voters — $230,000 on 1 filing
• National Parks Conservation Association — $150,724 on 1 filing
• Trout Unlimited — $120,000 on 1 filing
• Pacific Legal Foundation — $0 on 1 filing

Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.