In 1978, the United States Forest Service (USFS) began the management of roadless areas, i.e., all areas greater than 5,000 acres and without constructed roads, in a study called Roadless Area Review and Evaluation II (RARE II). The purpose of this study was to determine the suitability of these roadless areas for inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System. On October 13, 1999, twenty-one years later, President Clinton directed the Forest Service to provide long-term protection to inventoried roadless areas, as well as smaller roadless areas not yet inventoried. President Clinton's primary motives in initiating this direction were to reduce the $8.4 billion backlog of road maintenance costs as well as provide a definitive statement on how inventoried roadless areas would be managed in the future. The USFS developed a plan for future management of all roadless areas known as the Final Roadless Area Conservation Rule (Roadless Rule) and released it on January 5, 2001. The Roadless Rule, scheduled to become federal policy on May 12, 2001, will have significant environmental, economical, and social impacts on 58 million acres of public land.
             One of the major effects of the Roadless Rule is the impact it will have on the nation's timber supply. Because road construction and timber harvesting will be prohibited on 58.5 million acres of National Forest lands, approximately 30% of all National Forest System (NFS) lands (USDA Summary S-1) under the Roadless Rule, this prohibition will result in an annual loss of 140 million board feet (USDA FEIS 2-26). Although twenty-one states will be affected, the majority of the losses will occur in the states of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Utah. In fact, Alaska alone will lose 76.6 million board feet of timber annually (USDA FEIS B-5). The current timber program in Alaska averages 179 million board feet annually.
             The problem with a reduction in timber volume is that future timber...