As it happens, the makings of what became the landmark 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule were rolled out by Bill Clinton in 1999 at an event on Reddish Knob, the 4,397-foot peak located on the border of Augusta County and Pendleton County.
I know because I was there, major-league fear of heights and all.
As long as you stood in the middle of the flat top to the mountain, it wasn’t too unsettling.
All these many years later, the Trump administration, naturally, is trying to rescind what we now commonly call the Roadless Rule, which the oligarchs feel is a hindrance to their buddies making money.
The office of Gov. Abigail Spanberger sent us a release on Friday noting that what the Trumpers are trying to do to the Roadless Rule would impact nearly 400,000 acres of national forests in Virginia.
“The Roadless Rule is critical to protecting sensitive wildlife habitat, water quality and drinking water supplies, as well as Virginia’s outdoor recreation economy,” Spanberger said in a statement highlighted in the release. “The repeal of the Roadless Rule would open the door to further fragmentation of our forest areas, harming these ecological core habitats, and disrupting important wildlife corridors and migratory patterns.”
The Roadless Rule, as the name implies, designates specific areas within the National Forest System as inventoried roadless areas — limiting the construction of new roads and other impacts.
The way the Trumpers view it, their buddies can’t make money off the national forests if there aren’t roads.
“For 25 years, the Roadless Rule has helped safeguard hundreds of thousands of acres of Virginia’s forests, protecting clean drinking water, supporting local economies, preserving wildlife habitats and migration corridors, and ensuring opportunities for outdoor recreation,” U.S. Sen. Mark Warner said in a statement.
“The Trump administration’s proposal to roll back these protections would open the door to road construction and logging, threatening irreversible damage to Virginia’s forests, ecosystems, and wildlife. It’s important that we preserve these longstanding protections for the wildlife, communities, businesses, and families who depend on healthy forests,” Warner said.
“I strongly oppose the Trump-Vance administration’s rollback of this rule, which would open the door to more development and increased logging in our national forests,” U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine said in a statement. I’ll keep working with Gov. Spanberger and others in the delegation to protect our roadless areas, which support outdoor recreation, tourism, and local economic growth in communities across the country.”
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Chris Graham
