This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The Trump administration said on Tuesday it plans to rescind the “roadless rule” that has protected old-growth forests in the US for 25 years, potentially opening up almost 45 million acres of national forests to road construction, drilling, and logging.

Conservationists had feared the announcement was coming since last summer after Brooke Rollins, Trump’s secretary of agriculture, targeted a rule brought in by Bill Clinton’s administration, describing it as “overly restrictive” and an “absurd obstacle” to development.

On Tuesday the US Forest Service, an agency inside the Department of Agriculture, formally announced it had filed the proposal to rescind in its entirety the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Environmental groups immediately criticized the plan for rollbacks of protections to forests from Alaska to Oregon to North Carolina.

“[The rule] is the only thing preventing much of our wildest remaining national forests from industrial development. These forests offer critical habitat for wildlife, provide clean, fresh air and........

© Mother Jones