Wyoming’s Roadless Rule Challenge Stopped at Supreme Court

Wyoming’s push to have the federal roadless rule overturned has ended at the U-S Supreme Court. The high court has refused to take the case, which contended that prohibiting roadbuilding in national forest backcountry was creating wilderness – which is a job only Congress can do. Joel Webster is the director of the Center for Western Lands at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.






The state of Wyoming joined the Colorado Mining Association in pushing the case to the Supreme Court, citing additional concerns that limits on development hurt the timber, mining and drilling industries.

Duane Short with the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance says the decision is the final nail in the coffin for anti-roadless campaigners. He says it also brings strong public recognition of the benefits of undeveloped backcountry forests.






Joel Webster says it must be remembered that the 2001 rule was based on public input, which was overwhelmingly in favor of keeping these non-roaded areas “as is.”






The T-R-C-P and the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance worked to maintain support for the rule over the last ten years. About three-point-two million acres of forest land in Wyoming are categorized as "roadless."