Utah Gov. Gary Herbert has submitted his highly anticipated petition to the U.S. Department of Agriculture seeking a rollback of restrictions on road building and logging on much of the state’s 4.2 million acres of national forest that are protected under the 2001 Roadless Rule.
The governor’s staff framed the proposal, stitched together from requests filed by all Utah counties, as simple adjustments that would provide the U.S. Forest Service flexibility to better manage overgrown, beetle-damaged timber lands. The stated goal is to enable forest managers to more promptly “treat” these afflicted forests without threat of lawsuits and bureaucratic delays.