The Roadless Area Conservation Rule was adopted by the U.S. Forest Service on January 12, 2001, after the most extensive public involvement in the history of federal rulemaking. The Roadless Rule generally prohibited road construction and timber cutting in 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas, covering about 30 percent of the National Forest System. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Rule’s legality in 2002, but a Wyoming district ruled otherwise a year later.
