Trump Administration Moves to Rescind 25-Year-Old Ban on Building Roads Across 45 Million Acres of National Forest

A sawyer cuts down a huge dead pine tree as the Trout Fire burns in the Domeland Wilderness of Sequoia National Forest, near Inyokern, California, July 19, 2024. The fire has burned approximately 6,000 acres (2,428 hectares) and is at 0% containment, according to Cal Fire. (Credit: Photo by DAVID SWANSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Federal officials this week took the first formal step toward unwinding one of the country's longest-running forest protections, a move that could eventually put bulldozers and chainsaws into wild stretches of land from the Alaska panhandle to the mountains above Santa Fe.

A 2001 Rule Meets Its Biggest Threat Yet