Officially called the “Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act," HR 1581, recently introduced by Rep. McCarthy (R-CA) and co-sponsored by Rep. Pearce (R-NM), would roll back protections from 58.5 million acres of Forest Service roadless areas and another 6.7 million acres of BLM Wilderness Study Areas. The bill would nullify the Roadless Rule and eliminate all Wilderness Study Areas. Bird's Eye View created the map below for the PEW Environmental Group to highlight the issue. Protections would be removed from all the red areas in this map. This has caused a broad coalition of conservation organizations to call it the Great Outdoors Giveaway.
All of these areas represent potential wilderness, and they would all be opened to road-building and off-road vehicle use–impacts. Not only would existing protections for these areas be reversed, but future administrations would be prevented from ever protecting Wilderness Study Areas or unroaded Forest
Service Lands.
For more information go to: PEW Environmental Group
