by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow
The Daily Sentinel
Gertrude Stein wrote her oft-repeated line “A rose is a rose is a rose…” in a 1913 poem. She explained it as meaning “things are what they are.” But what if it’s called something else? That was Juliet’s question to Romeo: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.” Shakespeare argued that whatever we call something, it is still what it is.
Would that such common sense had been applied during 30 years of political arguments over which national forest lands were “roadless.” And what exactly should be considered a road.
Anyone who thought that issue long since resolved got a wakeup call with this year’s catastrophic California wildfires that killed 24 people, destroyed 1,400 homes, and refocused national attention on the scandalous mismanagement of forest lands. This week, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins — who oversees the U.S. Forest Service — officially repealed the Clinton-era “Roadless Rule,” purposely reopening a can of worms. As she correctly explained, the disastrous condition of the nation’s forests cannot be fully addressed any other way.
There are so many regulatory roadblocks to forest management that a former Forest Service chief famously called the process “analysis paralysis.” Rollins knows, as do most Forest Service officials, that the primary impediment to responsible management has been the “Roadless Rule.” It has been a monkey wrench for decades.
The controversy started with passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act, whose provisions are so restrictive that wilderness areas can only be designated by an act of Congress. Congress outlined two factors for designating wilderness: support of the state and local communities involved, and a Forest Service recommendation finding the area “roadless,” with no previous development.
