The Biden administration on Tuesday officially launched the process of restoring “Roadless Rule” protections to millions of acres of federal forests in Southeast Alaska.

This opens a 60-day comment period to reverse actions taken by the Trump administration that critics say could lead to more logging in the Tongass National Forest.

A notice in the federal register released Tuesday says the Southeast’s lumber industry is contracting.

The logging and sawing sector linked to the Tongass National Forest has grown from just under 200 jobs in the early 2000s to around 60 workers in 2018.

The US Department of Agriculture maintains that the restoration of the 2001 no-road rule reflects the Biden administration’s priorities to build on the region’s tourism and fishing sectors.

The US Forest Service has already frozen sales of old lumber under the current administration.

“…. policy change for Tongass can be made without significant negative impacts on the timber and mining industries, while providing benefits to the leisure, tourism and fishing industries, ”the advisory said.

Austin Williams of Trout Unlimited in Anchorage said Alaska Governor Bill Walker’s 2018 petition to exempt Tongass National Forest from road-free rule protections puts too much emphasis on commercial logging. .

“It is really time we moved beyond that,” Williams said Tuesday. “And we recognize that there is more value in the forest, keep it and conserve it so that we can have, you know, fish and wildlife so that we can have tourism so that we can have uses. cultural and traditional and to help fight climate change. “

The no-road rule would apply to around 9 million acres of Tongass. But in practical terms, it could protect – at most – about 168,000 acres of old growth forest from clearcutting.

Alaska’s elected officials denounce “federal overshoot”

Governor Mike Dunleavy and the Alaska Congressional delegation strongly supported the Trump administration’s exemption from the roadless rule and called the Biden administration’s position “federal overbreadth.”

“We believe the discretion for forest management should continue to be at the local level,” Gov. Randy Ruaro, who grew up in Ketchikan when it was a forest town, told CoastAlaska. “We don’t need Washington, DC with a unique rule for every forest in the country. “

A state lawsuit to block action by the Biden administration to bring Roadless back to the Tongass was dismissed last week by a federal appeals court.

A separate lawsuit by a coalition of tribes and environmental groups in favor of roadless protections remains pending but could be rendered moot by the new leadership change.

Tuesday’s action opens a required two-month comment period before the agency can move forward.

But even if the Roadless Rule is applied to Tongass, it could be overturned again by a future administration. It would take an act of Congress for more permanent protections.