BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Prairie Hills Audubon Society - ECPv6.17.5//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Prairie Hills Audubon Society
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://phas-wsd.org
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Prairie Hills Audubon Society
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/Denver
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0600
TZNAME:MDT
DTSTART:20250309T090000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0600
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:MST
DTSTART:20251102T080000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0600
TZNAME:MDT
DTSTART:20260308T090000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0600
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:MST
DTSTART:20261101T080000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0600
TZNAME:MDT
DTSTART:20270314T090000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0600
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:MST
DTSTART:20271107T080000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Denver:20260921T213000
DTEND;TZID=America/Denver:20260921T215900
DTSTAMP:20260913T043057Z
CREATED:20260902T221546Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260913T043057Z
UID:23157-1790026200-1790027940@phas-wsd.org
SUMMARY:Original comment deadline for Trumps proposed revocation of the 2001 Roadless Rule (deadline extended to 10/6/26)
DESCRIPTION:Prairie Hills Audubon Society — Action Alert\nThe Roadless Rule Is on the Chopping Block \nUSDA proposes to erase road and logging protections on roughly 45 million acres of national forest — including inventoried roadless areas here on the Black Hills National Forest. \nTHE ORIGINAL COMMENT DEADLINE WAS: Monday\, September 21\, 2026. It got EXTENDED till October 6\, 2026  \nComment here: https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FS-2025-0001-223869\nFederal Register notice: https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2026-16965\n91 Fed. Reg. 53\,827 (Aug. 20\, 2026) · RIN 0596-AD66 · Docket FS-2025-0001 \nBy mail: Director\, Ecosystem Management Coordination\, USDA Forest Service\, 201 14th Street SW\, Mailstop 1108\, Washington\, DC 20250-1124. Reference RIN 0596-AD66.\nIs this scoping\, or comment on a rule? It is both at once. \nThis is not scoping. Scoping already happened — USDA published its Notice of Intent on August 29\, 2025 and gave the public 21 days\, drawing more than 220\,000 comment letters on behalf of over 625\,000 individuals and organizations. What is open now is a single combined comment period on three documents released together: the proposed rule itself\, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement\, and the cost-benefit analysis. One comment can address all three\, and comments on the DEIS are the ones that build the NEPA record. This is the last public comment opportunity before a final rule. \nRead the documents yourself\nThere are more than three. The core set is the proposed rule\, the 333-page Draft EIS\, and the cost-benefit analysis — but the agency also released a preliminary biological assessment and a Tribal consultation summary\, and both matter. \n\n\n\nProposed rule\n(easiest to read)\nFederal Register HTML version\, with a table of contents and searchable text:\nfederalregister.gov/d/2026-16965\nThe typeset PDF as filed is at public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-16965.pdf\n\n\nAll documents in one place\nThe Forest Service posted the proposed rule\, the Draft EIS\, the cost-benefit analysis and the additional supporting analyses to a public online folder:\nusfs-public.app.box.com/s/gomzq6rruwsds8rw50o3j3g429utj8f6\nThis is the fastest route to the DEIS and the cost-benefit analysis. No login required.\n\n\nRegulations.gov docket\nSame documents plus every comment filed to date\, and the comment form:\nregulations.gov/docket/FS-2025-0001\n\n\nInteractive map\nLayer the three alternatives against roads\, towns\, national forest boundaries and the wildland-urban interface. This is how you find the roadless areas nearest you.\nexperience.arcgis.com/experience/c6122042b4ae46c9b323306912e8b40e\nInstructions for reading the map are in the online folder above.\n\n\nTribal consultation summary\nUSDA’s own summary of what Tribal governments told it:\nfs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2001-roadless-rule-rescission-summary-analysis.pdf\n\n\nRoadless area boundary data\nFor anyone who wants the actual GIS layer:\nZipped shapefile of 2001 inventoried roadless areas\n\n\nAgency landing page\nfs.usda.gov/managing-land/planning/roadless — the Forest Service hub\, updated as the rulemaking moves\n\n\n\nWhat the proposal would do \nRemove and reserve 36 C.F.R. part 294\, subpart B — the entire 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule — which has barred road construction\, road reconstruction\, and most timber harvest in inventoried roadless areas since January 2001.\nThe 2001 rule covered 58.5 million acres. Because the Idaho and Colorado state-specific roadless rules are unaffected\, roughly 45 million acres across 38–39 states are at stake.\nManagement of inventoried roadless areas would fall to individual forest plans\, where a forest supervisor or regional forester may later amend the plan to allow roading and logging.\nBy the agency’s own numbers in the DEIS and cost-benefit analysis: about 18.2 million acres (45.5%) are lands where forest plans already allow roads and only the Roadless Rule prohibits them; about 4.8 million acres become newly available for timber harvest; recreationists could lose an estimated $6.1 million per year in economic benefit; total annual impacts could exceed $100 million. \nWhy South Dakota should care \nIn our region – the Black Hills National Forest\, Custer-Gallatin National Forest \, Buffalo Gap National Grasslands\, Grand River National Grasslands\, Little Missouri National Grasslands and  Thunder Basin National Grasslands contain inventoried roadless areas.  In the Black  Hills\, roadless and wilderness areas provide protection from the endlessly aggressive logging in the rest of the forest.   Strip roadless areas out and their fate rests entirely on the Black Hills forest plan — a plan already under enormous pressure from timber-target politics\, and Plan Revisions that PHAS has been contesting since the 1997 Plan Revision appeal. Rescission also removes a nationwide backstop at exactly the moment when the Endangered Species Act’s habitat protections are being narrowed (see our companion alert) and when the Forest Service is separately proposing to open more of the forest road and trail system to motorized use.\nThe process itself is worth commenting on \nWhen the Roadless Rule was written in 2000–2001\, the agency allowed 129 days of comment and held more than 400 public meetings; over 1.6 million comments came in. When the Bush administration tried to replace the rule in 2005\, it gave two comment periods\, each over 100 days.\nThis time the agency gave 30 days and has scheduled no public hearings anywhere except Alaska (those are ANILCA section 810 subsistence hearings\, required by a different statute).\nEarthjustice\, on behalf of the Wilderness Society\, Sierra Club and roughly a dozen other groups\, formally asked USDA to extend the comment period to at least 120 days — to December 21\, 2026 or later — and to hold hearings around the country. The agency has responded with an extra two weeks for commenting.\nUSDA’s own Tribal summary reports that the majority sentiment among Tribal governments consulted is opposition\, and that Tribes raised the failure to fulfill trust responsibilities through adequate government-to-government consultation. Several requested alternatives the agency did not analyze\, including a strengthened roadless rule and a Traditional Homelands Conservation Rule. \nPre-written comment tools from national groups \nEach of these lets you add your own words. Please do add them. Form letters get counted; substantive\, personal\, place-specific comments must be individually addressed by the agency and are what hold up in court. If you can only do one thing\, personalize the first paragraph.\nNational Audubon Society act.audubon.org/a/save-roadless-areas-2026\nSierra Club sierraclub.org/save-roadless-rule-protect-our-forests\nNRDC action.nrdc.org/letter/5017-roadless-rule-052826\nDefenders of Wildlife defenders.org/roadless-rule\nNational Wildlife Federation support.nwfactionfund.org/page/101819/action/1\nRoadless.org roadless.org — comment-drafting tool plus a library of two dozen peer-reviewed studies with DOIs and key findings you can cite directly\nEarthjustice statement earthjustice.org/press/2026/conservationists-blast-federal-proposal-to-bulldoze-forestlands \nAlso call your delegation \nThe durable fix is legislative. The Roadless Area Conservation Act (H.R. 3930 / S. 2042\, 119th Congress) would write the Roadless Rule into federal law so that no administration could repeal it by regulation. Ask Senator Thune\, Senator Rounds and Representative Johnson to cosponsor it\, and to press USDA for a longer comment period and public hearings in the West. U.S. Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121.\nCompanion action — the other half of the one-two punch \n=============== \nTwo days after the roadless proposal\, the Forest Service opened a second national rulemaking: a rewrite of the Travel Management Rule (36 C.F.R. parts 212 and 261). It would drop the national “minimization criteria” that currently require the agency to minimize damage to soil\, water\, wildlife and habitat when designating motorized routes\, and replace them with a presumption that existing roads\, trails and areas are open unless the agency documents a reason to close them. It expressly reaches section-line access on the national grasslands. Comments due Wednesday\, September 23\, 2026.\n91 Fed. Reg. 54\,686 (Aug. 24\, 2026) · Docket FS-2026-0100\nFederal Register: federalregister.gov/d/2026-17211 · \nComment: regulations.gov/commenton/FS-2026-0100-0001 \nPrairie Hills Audubon Society · P.O. Box 788\, Black Hawk\, SD 57718 · 605-787-6466 · phas.wsd@rapidnet.com · phas-wsd.org \n 
URL:https://phas-wsd.org/event/comment-deadline-on-trumps-proposed-revocation-of-the-2001-roadless-rule/
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR