Team 44 Backtracks on Roadless Rule

Forty-four pledged during his campaign for office that his administration would defend the 2001 Roadless Rule that prohibits road building in wilderness areas. His appointee at the Department of Agriculture, former Iowa governor, Tom Vilsack, has approved logging in a roadless area of Tongass National Forest, Alaska. The North Orion sale of 381 acres on Revillagigedo Island did not technically violate the ban on logging in pristine forests since the area had received a final environmental impact statement prior to the Roadless Rule being adopted. The sale is in the last in-tact roadless watershed on Thorne Arm used by locals for recreation and hunting. About 2 miles of road will be constructed to provide access to the area adjacent to Misty Fjords National Monument. The Forest Service's cost of building the road will no doubt exceed the revenue from the sale. Environmentalists are concerned that several more approvals are in the pipeline under the "Vilsack Policy" in which the Secretary personally reviews timber sales in roadless areas nationwide. They would rather see legal action from Team 44 to overturn a Wyoming federal district court ruling invalidating the Roadless Rule, and dismiss a pending appeal of the Ninth Circuit decision invalidating the Regime's timber sale program intended to replace the Roadless Rule.