Updated Oct. 2026

A Forest of Reversals

The Roadless Rule, 1998–2026

The Forest Service’s Roadless Rule bars roadbuilding, maintenance, and logging in certain national forest areas, with limited exceptions. Congress never enacted it; agencies and courts have shaped its scope for decades.

Leaving Ketchikan, Alaska, by sea. Ketchikan sits on an island surrounded by the Tongass National Forest, and no road connects it to the rest of the country: people and supplies arrive by boat or plane. Time-lapse, sped up. Video: fusedglass01 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.