For most Americans, September means the end of summer and the start of the school year. For hunters like Sen. Martin Heinrich, it means elk season - the few months a year when filling the freezer becomes a legitimate civic activity.
As an avid sportsman and conservationist, Heinrich has been harvesting wild game for decades. When scouting a hunt, he looks for the places where people aren't. Elk and other wildlife need food, water and security cover - none of which exist near roads. Which is precisely why the Forest Service created the roadless rule: to preserve some of our last remaining stretches of national forest from development. These areas are vital not just for hunters and anglers but also for wildlife habitat, clean drinking water and outdoor recreation.
Yet the Trump administration is working to repeal the roadless rule without giving the public a real opportunity to weigh in. That should concern everyone who cares about our public lands.
Our public lands are the physical manifestation of Jeffersonian democracy: widespread ownership, managed by and distributed for all, giving each of us a say over the very land that makes up our country. And nowhere is that clearer than at a public comment meeting on a government public lands proposal.
Heinrich has been to these meetings. He sat in a packed public hearing room in New Mexico when the roadless rule was just a proposal and listened to the public comment. Back then, 95 percent of people agreed with the roadless rule. By last year, that number had grown to 99 percent.
The bottom line: the roadless rule is overwhelmingly popular, including with sportsmen, anglers, campers and recreators. It is so popular that the administration knows it will lose if it consults the public on dismantling it. Thus, the administration is simply refusing to hold public meetings at all. That is not only insulting - it is undemocratic. And it is a failure to listen to the people these lands belong to.
Now, the administration will try to tell you that repealing the roadless rule is for your own good. Heinrich is here to say that it is not telling you the truth.
The administration will tell you that repealing the roadless rule will reduce wildfires. The evidence tells a completely different story. A recent study found that 80 percent of human-caused fires happen within a half mile of a road. Roadless areas thus reduce fire risk rather than increasing it.
The administration will tell you that repealing the roadless rule will create the roads we need to improve our economy. The truth is, we have enough roads. The U.S. Forest Service has 371,000 miles of roads already - roughly eight times more than the entire U.S. interstate highway system. And the maintenance backlog for these forest roads is $6.1 billion. When you are in a hole that deep, the first thing to do is to stop digging.
Less than 5 percent of the U.S. is roadless or wilderness. Meanwhile, the recreation economy - which often relies on roadless areas and public lands - represents a whopping $1.3 trillion in economic output, almost 2.4 percent of the entire U.S. GDP. And hunting generates $33.5 billion in wages and income, with a total economic output of over $107 billion. That is greater than the GDP of 121 countries.
Our public lands are already driving enormous economic activity. We should be asking how to preserve these places - not how to put more roads through them.
As someone who has been fighting this fight in Congress for years, Heinrich also knows this fight is about more than the roadless rule.
Last July, when the administration threatened to sell off half of our public lands, the uproar was so loud that they had to turn tail and run. Now we're seeing another attempt to chip away at public lands protections that keep our public lands in public hands - this time by repealing the roadless rule and limiting the public's ability to make their voices heard.
These roadless areas are some of our most special places. From the trout-filled headwaters of the Pecos River, to the bighorn habitat of the Bootheel, to the junipers and ponderosa pine forests of the Carson National Forest: New Mexico's identity is in roadless areas.
Roadless areas are the backcountry places where we hunt, fish and pass our traditions on to the next generation. That's why this fight matters.
For an administration that talks a big game, they are awfully afraid to go out to the people and places their decisions impact - because they know there will be opposition. Heinrich often says that our public lands are the anvil on which our American identity has been forged. Without the roadless rule, many of those places won't survive.
So, to the administration, a simple request: Hold public meetings. Listen to the people who hunt, fish and recreate in these areas. Let them have a real say before you make a decision that could permanently change some of our most treasured lands.
And to the public: Make your voices heard. Our public lands are ours - and I urge you to speak up to keep it that way.
To submit a comment to the Forest Service, you can use this website until Oct. 6.
Martin Heinrich is the senior U.S. senator from New Mexico and the ranking Democratic member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He is an avid sportsman and a lifelong conservationist.