By Christina MacIntosh
Jackson Hole News&Guide
Via- Wyoming News Exchange
JACKSON — The Wyoming County Commissioners Association has supported the U.S. Forest Service’s push to repeal the Roadless Rule.
The association’s board, which includes a representative commissioner from each county in the state, does not formally vote on matters; instead it operates on a consensus model, said Micah Christensen, the association’s natural resource adviser.
Besides Teton County, commissioners overwhelmingly supported rescission, Christensen said.
Commissioner Natalia Macker is Teton County’s representative and the chair of the Wyoming commissioners board.
The rule, which has been in place since 2001, prevents construction of new roads on 45 million acres of forest in the United States, including 3.3 million acres in Wyoming. That includes almost all of the Wyoming and Salt River Ranges and swaths of the Gros Ventre Range outside of the Gros Ventre Wilderness.
Commissioners supported the rescission because they believe that decisions about how lands are protected — and which lands are protected — should be made locally through the forest planning process, Christensen said.
The association “does not dispute that unroaded landscapes can provide important ecological, recreational and social values, or that those values may warrant strong protection,” the association wrote in its letter. “Our concern is that those determinations should not continue to be governed by a national rule.”
Conservation groups view the situation differently.
“They are federal public lands, so it feels appropriate that a federal rule would direct management of these roadless areas,” said Peggie dePasquale, national forest wildlands director for the Wyoming Wilderness Association.
DePasquale also contends that the existing rule allows for local decision-making.
“There is an incredible amount of flexibility baked into the rule as it stands today,” she said. “It gives power to local forests and land managers to make decisions unique and appropriate to the landscapes they’re managing.”
The association joins the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Gov. Mark Gordon, Rep. Harriet Hageman, Sen. Cynthia Lummis and Sen. John Barrasso in its support of repealing the rule.
The Teton County Board of County Commissioners, for its part, has submitted public comment in support of keeping the rule in place. Conservation groups, including the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, the Wyoming Outdoor Council and the Wyoming Wilderness Association, have rallied in support of the rule, as well. Public comment on the rule closed earlier this month.
More than 625,000 people commented during an earlier public comment that began in August 2025, after the Forest Service announced its intentions to conduct an environmental analysis on rescission. Approximately 99% were opposed to rescission, according to the draft environmental impact statement.
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