A Republican-led effort to open more areas in national forests to road construction and logging would let two states — Idaho and Colorado — keep their restrictions, but other states may have a hard time if they want similar protections.
That’s one of the wrinkles in the Republican proposal to rescind the 25-year-old roadless-area conservation rule that blocks new roads and logging on tens of millions of acres of national forests.
The legislation passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a party-line vote Wednesday as an amendment to S. 140, the “Wildfire Prevention Act,” which would increase annual goals for forest thinning and for prescribed fire. Lawmakers on opposite sides of the debate gave varying interpretations of the amendment Thursday.
New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, the committee’s ranking Democrat, suggested states that want to follow Idaho and Colorado would face a high bar in negotiating deals with the Forest Service.
