Six AGs Filed Comments Objecting to Proposed Removal of Protections for Tongass National Forest

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra led a coalition of six attorneys general in submitting comments to the U.S. Forest Service calling on the agency to withdraw a proposed rule to exempt the Tongass National Forest in Alaska from the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The proposal would open the Tongass — the largest intact temperate rainforest in North America — to new roadbuilding and logging, jeopardizing its unique environmental and cultural attributes. In their comments, the attorneys general emphasized that the Forest Service failed to provide a rational explanation for its proposed reversal in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act; failed to adequately assess the proposal’s environmental impacts as required under the National Environmental Policy Act; and failed to initiate interagency consultations mandated by the Endangered Species Act. The attorneys general also noted the increased threat that logging and roadbuilding would pose to vulnerable wildlife species and the Tongass’s role as the largest carbon sink of all the nation’s national forests.