demands will have to be made up from other sources, including private and international forests ("Private Forests"). Many of these lands, because they are under private ownership, are not required to adhere to the same environmental regulations that the USFS lands are governed by (Bartuska 4). For example, timber companies are allowed to harvest trees to within 50 feet of streams whereas the USFS requires that a buffer of at least 300 feet be maintained. One of the largest differences in regulations pertains to clearcutting. The USFS limits clearcuts to 40 acres, whereas private landowners have no size restrictions. Without regulations, problems such as massive clear-cutting and erosion can occur. In essence, the impacts associated with commercial logging will not be reduced or eliminated by the moratorium on logging and road construction; rather, they will be transferred to a different land base and, more likely, amplified.
             Another valuable resource that would be adversely impacted by the Roadless Rule is leasable minerals. Although these resources are less notable on a national scale, they are still important in isolated areas due to their economic contributions to local communities. In eastern Utah and western Colorado there are over 60,000 acres of inventoried Roadless areas that contain an estimated 308 million-1.3 billion tons of coal (USDA FEIS Table 3-51). Colorado and Utah are just small examples of the total 30 billion tons of coal on National Forest lands (USDA FEIS 3-316). In addition to coal, vast resources of oil and gas reserves will be restricted from exploration due to the Roadless rule. There are potential oil and gas reserves on over 7.6 million acres of inventoried Roadless areas (USDA FEIS 3-255). Another major mineral that would be affected by the Roadless Rule is phosphate. An estimated 873.3 million tons of phosphate would be locked up on the Caribou-Targhee National Forest in southwest Idaho (USDA ...