The Sierra Club is reporting that the official public comment window for the Roadless Rule is about to close, and it is urging supporters to submit comments and donate before the October 6 deadline.
The environmental organization said the Department of Agriculture is moving to repeal the Roadless Rule, a step it said would open 45 million acres of national forests to road building, clear-cutting and mining. It said the administration is attempting to disregard more than 600,000 public comments, over 99 percent of which it said support maintaining full roadless protections.
The Sierra Club said officials argue the deregulation would help prevent wildfires, but it said research shows the opposite. It said wildfires are four times more likely to start in roaded areas than in roadless tracts, and that more than 90 percent of wildfires start within half a mile of a road. The group called the proposal a corporate giveaway that puts wildlife corridors, clean drinking water and old-growth forests at risk.
The Sierra Club said donations made in the final days before the deadline would fund its rapid-response operations, including driving public comments into the federal record, supporting local activists and lobbying Congress to safeguard the forests in law. It said the forests cannot speak for themselves and that supporters would lose their chance to speak for them on the official record once the comment period ends.