The Public Weighs In.

When the previous administration crafted the Alaska Roadless Rule, most of the more than 400,000 public comments were in favor of keeping the additional layer of protection for roadless areas. Six Alaska Native tribes initially helped the USDA develop the new rule but withdrew their cooperation after learning that the Forest Service would move forward with a full exemption.

"We recognized that compromise was likely necessary to reach an alternative that we could all support. However, when a full exemption was selected as the preferred alternative due to undue political interference in the rulemaking process, the months that we spent working to find a good-faith compromise were discarded in favor of political expediency," the tribes wrote in a letter to then-Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue.

The US Forest...