This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosseo from Bloomberg Radio.
The Trump administration wants to get rid of a rule that protects tens of millions of acres of national forest from road building and large scale logging, forests that protect endangered species, biodiversity, and watersheds used for drinking water from Alaska to Puerto Rico. But scrapping the so called Roadless Rule will face a reality check from litigation, government downsizing, and even a soft timber market. Joining me is an expert in environmental law, Pat Parento, a professor at the
Vermont Law and Graduate School. Pat, just what is the Roadless Rule?
So this was a rule adopted during President Clinton's last year in office, literally, and it relates to areas on the National Forest which are one hundred and ninety three million acres and it comprises about fifty eight thousand acres, so it's about thirty percent of all the lands in the National Forests. And these are areas that, as the
name implies, don't have roads. And the reason, by the way, they don't have roads and haven't for over one hundred years of Forest Service management, which has always emphasized logging. That's been the raison detra of the National forests for almost its entire existence.
Right.
The reason they're roadless is they're too expensive to build and maintain roads in these remote areas, high elevation areas, very difficult to access areas. If they were accessible, they would have been logged long ago, because the Forest Service has been converting native forests wild forests to plantations, plantations
emphasizing commercially valuable species, eliminating everything else. So that's why they're roadless, and that's why they've become such valuable for many reasons wildlife and fisheries, conservation, endangered species, but also water supply. These are intact watersheds I mean relatively intact, right, that haven't been disturbed, that haven't been roaded, and therefore the water coming off of that landscape has been filtered by all of the trees and vegetation. A healthy forest,
in other words, produces clean water. This is water you can drink. I mean it's not recommended, you know, because of you know, bacteria, but in terms of pollution, this is water that you don't have to filter and treat extensively. So these areas are valuable for all kinds of reasons, you know, outdoor recreation, sure, fishing and hunting and all that, but also water supply. So that's what at stake here.
Before I did research for this story, I thought that the Forest Service was meant to preserve our forests, not to produce timber.
Yeah, well, I mean their manage under what's called multiple use. Some people would you know, say multiple abuse. But still the law says there are five different values of the forest, including as I mentioned, fish and wildlife, recreation, water supply, and lumber. Of course, timber is one of the primary reasons for managing national forests, and you know, we've had laws that required the Forest Service to come up with
an annual quota of cuts. Whether or not the market needed the amount of timber, the Forest Service was obligated to put it on the market sell it for below market value in many cases, and a lot of the timber that came off national forests, particularly in the West, particularly the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, they were cut for export. They weren't processed in the
United States. We were operating like a third world country in terms of our national forests exporting really high value trees, large diameter old growth trees, to send them to Japan, send them to Korea, and have to Japan and Korea process these into furniture in the musical instruments, pianos, even chapsticks, right, and then sell them back to us. It was crazy that we were letting other countries benefit from our forest resources.
So that all came to an end. And Clinton was certainly instrumental during the whole spot at Owl God Squad proceedings and all of that background. Clinton was the one who said, you know, we've got to retain the remainder of our intact forest resources for all these reasons. And so you know, we've turned the corner on how the national forests are being managed for multiple uses, not just timber production. But now, of course Trump wants to prioritize
what he's calling you a lumber emergency. Of course, I don't know how many You've lost track of the number of emergencies he's declared, but we've apparently got a timber emergency as well.
So the Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins, who slammed the roadless rule as absurd, said there's a timber emergency and they have to get more logs on trucks to comply with Trump's March order calling for expanded forest cutting to avoid importing wood products and reduce wildfire threats. Is there a timber emergency.
No, there is certainly a demand for more timber from the forest products industry, from the lumber companies because they don't want to have to import lumber from Canada. We do import a lot from Canada. I mean, Manada has more forests than we do. And of course, now with tariffs imposed by Trump on Canadian imports, the cost of lumber from Canada is going to becoming more expensive, as is everything else from coffee to eggs. Right, So that
is true. But the reason that there is a shortage of timber production in the United States is for three reasons. Number one, it is the labor shortage. Number two, it's the mills that used to process timber have closed. And number three is the supply chain for lumber products has become more complicated, you know, the transportation of logs and trees, you know, between the United States and Canada has become
more complicated. So the reasons why the domestic production of lumber has declined has nothing to do with an emergency. We have plenty of timber and lumber. The question is at what cost? And if you want to increase us production of timber, the way to do that is to create a market for it and then create the labor. And also, by the way, have an agency, namely the Forest Service, with skilled silver culturists, the people that manage the forest. And of course Trump is cutting those positions.
They've cut over two thousand Forest Service positions. When you do that, you can't do the planning, the management, the timber sales. So those are some of the reasons why if there's a shortage of domestic lumber on the market. The reasons are not because we're not logging old growth and roadless areas. The reasons lie elsewhere.
And what would be the impact of rescinding this roadless rule.
By the way, we should say something about what the roadless rule is and what it allows, because it addresses specifically this business about we need to cut these trees to manage wildfire. Right, So what the roadless rule allows is thinning of forests fuel reduction, which means you know, the small trees in the forest and prescribe burns. That's
number one. Number two roadless areas have been roadless for over one hundred years, as I mentioned, and there hasn't been any intensive logging because they're so expensive to build and maintain. And the rule also reduces all of the litigation. I've been involved in defending the roadless Rule full disclosure back in two thousand and two in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and since then there've been over a
dozen lawsuits. There's been all kinds of conflict in litigation over these areas, and so one of the reasons for the roadless rule is to say, well, let's put an end to these endless lawsuits and conflict over these areas.
They're very popular with the public, that's why there's so much controversy in litigation, and this roadless rule was designed to put an end to that and get the Forest Service to focus on those areas of the National Forest where there is a history of commercial logging and you know, focus your efforts on increasing production if that's what we nationally think we need to do in those areas that
are already roaded. And by the way, there are two one hundred and sixty five thousand miles of forest roads in the National Forest. Think about that. The entire interstate highway system is forty seven thousand miles, So you can do the math. You're talking about, you know, a huge multiple of roads already in the National Forest, and guess what the backlog of costs to either decommission as they say, these roads in other words, restore them to a natural environment,
or just simply maintain them. The price tag for that is over eight billion dollars in FY twenty twenty three. So you know, the Forest Service doesn't eat and begin to have enough money to manage the roads they already
have to either maintain them or decommission them. Right, So now you're talking about opening up all these new areas to road building with all the expense of that and the maintenance of that of those roads once they're built, and then you're going to access these areas that haven't been logged, haven't been commercially valuable enough to invest the money to log them. That's what this order is talking about.
And the Forest Service is dealing with budget cuts and staffing shortages, so it may have problems just keeping up with the things it already has to do.
Right, they don't have a budget. The budget they have for managing wildfires is the largest segment of their budget. It's over a billion dollars. Wildfires is definitely a problem. There's lots of reasons for that. We could have a whole program on it. Why there are so many wildfires, including of course climate change and global warming driven wildfires, but lots of reasons why. Building in the areas close to the forest interface is a reason for wildfires. But
here's the thing about roads. When you build more roads, you're going to get more wildfires. The data is crystal clear on that. Why. Guess why, Because people are driving into these areas, these remote areas, and what are they doing. They're building campfires, aren't they And what do they do with campfires? Do they always always put them out?
No?
Ninety percent of wildfire ignition is human caused, ninety percent. That's the data. So you put roads into these areas, you're going to get more wildfires. That's clear from our history of dealing with wildfires, and the Forest Service would tell you that.
Yeah. Forest Service research published during the first Jump administration show that more wildfires ignite near roads. Wildfire mitigation efforts have been more common in roadless areas than in the rest of the national forests. And roadless areas have no effect on wildfire burn rates. Coming up next on the Bloomberg Lawn Show, I'll continue this conversation with Professor Pat Parento of the Vermont Law and Graduate School. We'll talk about some of the litigation that can be expected if
the roadless Rule is rescinded. I'm June Grosso. When you're listening to Bloomberg. The Trump administration wants to get rid of a rule that protects tens of millions of acres of national forest from road building and large scale logging, but its zealed to log will face a reality check from government downsizing, possible litigation, and even a soft timber market. The US Forest Service, which manages roadless areas, is grappling
with budget cuts and staffing shortages. At the same time, environmental groups are gearing up for legal battles arguing the so called roadless Rule safeguards endangered species, clean water, and buy diversity. President Bill Clinton implemented the rule in the final weeks of his term, envisioning it as a way to protect endangered species and three hundred and fifty watersheds within national forests used for drinking water. From Alaska to
Puerto Rico. Among the places the rule has preserved are parts of the world's largest coastal temperate rainforest in Alaska's Tongus National Forest, vast mountain ranges in central Idaho, the peaks and plateaus above Utah's Contested Barriers National Monument, and
the Appalachian Forest in Virginia. But Agricultural Secretary Brook Rawlins has slammed the roadless rule as absurd and declared a timber emergency to get more logs on trucks and comply with Trump's March order calling for expanded forest cutting to avoid importing wood products and reduced wildfire threats. I've been talking to Professor Pat Parento of the Law and Graduate School.
If they do rescind the rule, I mean, do you think that nothing much would happen at the beginning because the Forest Service doesn't have the money or the staff to start building roads.
Well, first of all, I mean an attempt to repeal this roadless rule that, as I said, there's been over a dozen lawsuits. There'll be another one, several in fact, So the first thing you're going to have is another round of litigation over repealing the rule, and that'll involve the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, the whole panoply of federal law will come into play, and it'll be litigated in many district
courts around the country. Because everybody's got a favorite for us, they're going to defend to the death, not to the death, but they're going to defend vigorously. Right, So we're going to have a whole bunch of litigation over whether the repeal of the roadless rule is legitimate. And I predict they're going to be injunctions levied against the Forest Service
when they try to sell timber from these areas. And then of course is the question of market so you know, if the companies have to build these roads, I don't think there's going to be very many of these areas that will be logged. One of the biggest ones that's been contentious is the Tongas National Forest in Alaska, and that's been back and forth between it's either exempt from the roadless rule or it's in the roadless rule. Currently
it is in the roadless rule. So there's certainly part of the forests where the value of the timber in question. These old growth large trees is sufficient enough that the timber industry is going to want to fight over that and try to get access to those areas. But in terms of the fifty eight thousand acres around the country, including forests in the east right here in our own Vermont, the Green Mountain National Forests, or across the river in
nor Hampshire the White Mountain National Forests. You know, these are areas that have roadless areas, and the timber in those areas just isn't going to be economically feasible. It's a log But some of these big western forest, yeah, there's probably going to be significant fights to get access to those areas.
So you litigated this, as you mentioned. If they do rescind the roadless rule, what would some of the challenges be League.
One, Well, you know, the National Forest Management Act requires that every forest have a plan, and because the roadless Rule has been in effect, you know, it's gone through as I say, different iterations, shall we say, as different administrations come and go. You know, the Clinton administration, then the Bush one administration, and then you had Bush two, and so you know it's gone back and forth in terms of the extent of the roadless rule and what
forests we're in and out. But right now all of these areas are are protected as roadless and so the National Forest Management Act will be one of the principal laws because you have to comply with forest plans. And if the forest plan says there's no logging in these roadless areas, then there can't be any logging until you change the forest plan. That would be step number one. Well, to do that, you have to go through NEPA. You have to do another environmental assessment at least, if not
an environmental impact statement. We've talked a lot about what's happening with NEFA. And even though you know the Trump administration is trying to limit the scope of NIPA and the Supreme Court as well, it still exists. It's still a law. It has to be complied with, and you can't just snap your fingers and say we're going to change a forest plan and we're going to write a two page environmental impact statement to do it. That's going
to get challenged and overturned in court. Most of these areas contain really important critical habitat of a number of endangered species. Think Canada Links, think wolverine, Think grizzly bears. Think marbl mural ass think spotted owls. I could go on and on. These old girls, for uts are the last stronghold of many of our most high profile in endangered species, right, not just insects and butterflies, but you know, animals that people really care about and will fight for.
So you know that's what you're looking at when you go after these areas, You're going to involve a whole splate of environmental laws, including, by the way, the Clean Water Act. Because when you road these areas, rode them, build roads in them, they erode, right, and sediment comes off, and sediment carries all kinds of other pollutants. If you think about, you know, the way we fight fires, We flood the landscape with not only pesticides, but herbicides and
other fire retardant chemicals that are toxic. And there's all kinds of data about the fact that forests now have all kinds of these chemicals saturated into the sediment of these rivers coming out of the streams that are coming off these national forests and again down into the water supply systems for communities. So all kinds of laws come into play when you go after these roadless areas.
The Agricultural Secretary made this announcement in June, and nothing's been done yet where edging into late August. Is it something that might just be put aside, although you also have the fact that the so called Big Beautiful Bill mandates that the Forest Service increased US timber sales by two hundred and fifty million board feet each year through
twenty thirty four. That's an eight percent annual increase over twenty twenty three and a roughly seventy five percent cumulative spike in logging over the next nine years.
Yeah. Well, you know, you can put those kinds of goals out there, the same thing with how many people were going to deport every year, And the truth is, the reality is you're not going to meet those quotas, the market isn't going to be there to meet those quotas, or the amount of litigation I'm describing is going to stretch out for years into whatever the next administration is
going to be. And as I've said, you know, this roadless rule has been a bone of contention of political football for over twenty years, well over almost twenty five years. And so if it's not going to end. It's not going to stop with the Trump administration. They're not going to be able to road all these areas and get all the timber out of these areas. It's just not going to happen until there's another administration in power, maybe
a different Congress in power. Who knows. But the point is, we don't know what the future of these areas are. Just because the Agriculture Secretary is making these sweeping pronouncements doesn't mean it's going to happen.
Looking at this broader and as far as what steps the Trump administration has taken so far with regard to the environment, are they focusing on one area in particular or broader than that.
We thought the focus was going to be climate and energy, and of course it certainly has been. But frankly, from what I see, it's across the board. There is no law that's safe from this administration, no environmental law, and you could broaden it beyond that the civil rights laws. But certainly, from my expertise, I've never seen anything like this.
I've been doing this for fifty five years. I've seen conservative, you know, Republican administrations come and go, including the Reagan administration, and James Watt. I've never seen anything like this. They're leaving no stone unturned to deregulate and cripple the ability of federal agencies across the board to manage either public lands as we're talking about today, or public health with EPA,
or energy supply with the Department of Energy. Nothing that this administration is doing is designed to strengthen programs that we have had now for many decades, to manage natural resources, manage our energy supply and energy demand, to you know, create affordable sources of either timber as we're talking about today, or energy if we wanted to talk about that. The market and the technology is pointing towards cleaner, greener systems
of producing whatever goods and services we need. This administration is rolling the clock back across the board.
That's what I see, and that usually means even more litigation. Thanks so much for joining me today, Pat, that's professor Pat Parento of the Vermont Law and Graduate School.
This is what democracy look side. This is what democracy looks side.
There were redistricting rallies in Chicago, Illinois, and Austin, Texas over the weekend. Protests against Texas Republicans Plan to redraw the state's congressional maps to create five new Republican seats, and in support of Texas Democrat who disrupted a special session in the legislature and fled to Chicago to oppose the unusual mid decade registricting called for by President Trump.
It's important for us to show up because we kind of started this battle.
I guess trying to wake America up. Everybody needs to know what's happening. Everyone needs to see what we're fighting for. Texas Democrats ran out the clock in the special legislative session, but two hours later Governor Greg Abbott called a second session to redraw the maps, which would target key districts represented by Latino Democrats.
We hold a lot more bullets in our belt that we will be ready to use if we need to.
So after two weeks, the Democratic lawmakers returned to Texas and say the next fight will be in the courts, where they will challenge the new maps as being racially gerrymandered. Onny Blair is with the Texas ACLU. Governor Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton are following the President's agenda to
dilute the electoral power of black and Brown Texans. The redistricting standoff has led to a national fight for control of Congress ahead of the twenty twenty six midterms, and today, as Texas Republicans restarted the plan to give themselves five more seats, California Democrats took their first official steps to create five new House seats for their party by adopting a measure asking voters to approve new boundaries for twenty twenty six, twenty twenty eight, and twenty thirty, an aggressive
move maneuvered by California Governor Gavin Newsom.
It's not complicated.
We're doing this in reaction to a president of United States that called a sitting governor of the state of Texas and said, find me five seats. My guest is elections law expert Richard Brefalt, a professor at Columbia Law School. Rich does seem like there are any other impediments to Texas Republicans passing the new maps.
I mean, I think that after it gets enacted, they'll likely be some lawsuits challenge at least some of the district changes under the voting rights Sack, because I think some of them are going to be impacted what had been either majority of minority districts or districts that were electing minority elected Congress members. So I think there might conceivably be some challenges to the map under the Voting
Rights Actor, under the Constitution for racial bias. Not clear what would happen with those, not clear how quickly they would go forward, whether they would go forward fast enough in order to stop these changes from going into effect next year. I don't think there's much else that can happen. If the Democrats, I guess they've been back in one House already, or noough of them. I think it passed one house now. I think it's the question about the other House.
In order to challenge a map under the Voting Rights Act, what has to be shown? Because the Democrats have said that some of the districts being targeted by Republicans are those with a high percentage of Latinos or other minority.
Groups, they'd have to show that there was a pattern of racially polarized voting and that under the new map, minorities in this case, Latinos would be underrepresented relative to what they would be or what they are now under the current map. And then you'd have to tie that into other aspects of social and economic and political life in Texas to stay that Latinos are under represented politically and need to have the seats in order to get
fair representation. But the main things they would have to show is the existence of racially polarized voting, that Anglos and Latinos vote differently, and that changing the map this way would make it harder for Latino voters to get fair representation.
And how does it fit in that their last map is still being litigated.
Well, it's weird because of course that map was being challenged as unfair and the state was defending it. I mean, you could conceivably have made more majority minority districts. Actually, even the map that's about to be replaced has a pretty strong Republican tilt. I mean, Texas is a Republican state, but it's like a three to two Republican state, and the current map is two to one, and I think the resulting map would make it more like five to
one or four to one. So I think that would be the argument, and it might not affect every district. In other words, the districts which are primarily affecting white Democrats, they probably would not have a voting right sect claim. But the districts they make it harder for Latino Democratic representatives to be relected. I think they would be able to make the claim, whether they win or not.
A separate question, do courts put the new maps on hole while the litigation is going on.
That's a great question, because the Supreme Court has this doctrine that basically says that courts should not change things too close to an election. You know, and we don't know what too close to an election is, but I guess maybe it'll be primaries in March. So we're beginning to get close to the election. But the question is what's the status quo. Is the status quo whether the legislature passes, in which case, if you apply that principle,
courts should not intervene. Or is the status quo the maps that are currently in existence, in which case it would be appropriate to put the new maps on home so called the Percell principle. After a Supreme Court case of about twenty years ago, again the Supreme Court said lower federal courts should not intervene in election disputes too close to an election. There's a general question of what's too close to an election, and they've kind of moved
that up and up. But the question that you're asking about, what does the intervention. Is the intervention stopping a now legally adopted map or is the intervention preventing the disruption of the pre existing map? And that's a great question. I don't know the answer to that.
Texas Republicans said, well, there are a lot of states, and I think Massachusetts was one that are more Gerrymander than Texas is where there are so many Republicans and they don't have any representation. I mean, is that true?
Massachusetts is the largest state which has a single party delegation. That is said, all the representatives in Massachusetts are Democrats. Like think that's ten out of ten. The difference is that in Massachusetts the Democrats and Republicans are fairly evenly spread, in other words, the Democratic majority throughout the state. There are not big Republican pockets that would be able to
win a district under differently drawn maps. That's different from places like Texas or Ohio or Indiana where they're talking about redistricting and re redistricting, where there are Democratic pockets big enough to hold multiple seats, but if they get fragmented, fractured, and divided up into Republican areas, then they get no representation. So it is true. If Massachusetts was done I don't know on a proportional representation basis, they probably could be
two or three Republican seats out of ten. But because it's done on as all of our districts have done single mean re districts, there is no Republican area left in Massachusetts, which I think explains why without gerrymandering, Massachusetts has an entirely democratic delegation.
You mentioned some other states, I mean, do we know if their maps make it possible for them to redistrict in a way that Texas is.
I mean, I think in Indiana and in Missouri, we're they talking about there's only like one Democrat or two Democrats left in the state, and I think in Missouri they would basically be either wiping out or merely wiping out entirely democratic representation. And the way you do it is you begin to fragment it and you like draw slices of the pie. There's those district in Saint Louis and attach it to suburban districts which are a majority Republican.
I'm not sure, it's just targeting. And similarly in Indiana, I think there's a district in northern Indiana which is in a more democratic area. If you fragmented enough people do this call it cracking. If you crack the democratic population and you put the little slices of it in the different districts, you can get rid of a democratic district which would otherwise be kind of a normally.
Shaped California Democrats are moving forward with their attempt to redraw congressional maps. Are there any foreseeable legal problems there?
I think the problem with their maps, of course, is getting them adopted. I mean I haven't looked at the maps in terms of whether there would be any legal challenges to them under federal law. I mean, they're obviously a federal law. There are no gerrymandering challenges, and I wouldn't expect there would be any voting right fact or racial discrimination challenges. Now the problem is that California adopted
a constitucial amendment that created an independent districting process. In order to adopt this map, they and effect have to go back to the voters and then then their constitution. My sense is that the real issue in California is how much are the voters really willing to do this? You know, are the voters going to be as part as in as their elected officials, or the voters going to say, you know, we like the idea of an independent system and we want.
To keep it, but it's a temporary fix. It will go back to an independent system. Right.
There's supposed to be a one shot, and I think the way the governor phrases it, it's like it's entirely a different tat for what Texas is doing. And it does get to kind of a deeper problem with reform political form of the United States is that we're doing a lot of this on a state by state basis, but Congress is a national legislature, and that a lot of the states that have reformed their processes are democratic states.
Those republican states that reform their processes, one set of states that are gerrymandering, and one set of states don't, and that that just helps the jerrymanderers. It does kind of underscore the difficulty of doing reform one state at a time.
New York the governor keeps talking or has talked about it, and the Illinois governor has talked about it, but I haven't heard of any movement actually do.
Honestly, I don't. I think in New York this state constitution is different from the California one in that you can't put an amendment on the ballot unless it's been passed by two separately elected legislatures, and so basically it's
a slow down of the process. This could not be done even if the legislature this year passes it in the fall of twenty twenty five, you would have to wait until after the twenty twenty six elect for the legislature in the beginning of twenty twenty seven to pass an amendment or to pass a new map or something, and then it would go to the voters, but it wouldn't be effective until the twenty twenty eight elections.
Well, then, it seems like Democrats in New York have no options before the twenty twenty six midterms. I'm not sure what's happening in Illinois, and even Maryland has been mentioned by Democrats as a possibility. So we'll see. Thanks so much, rich that's Professor Richard Brfault of Columbia Law School, And that's it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest legal news on
our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot bloomberg dot com, slash podcast slash Law, and remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg