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Back in June, the Trump administration announced it wanted to repeal the so-called roadless rule.

This is a policy from 2001 that restricts road building and logging in tens of millions of acres of undeveloped national forest.

The administration said getting rid of the rule will give local officials more flexibility to manage wildfires

and support timber-based economies. But critics say it could lead to excessive logging

and it could degrade wildlife habitat and watersheds. One of our guests on the show today told

us this story fits into an historical pattern, a cycle where the Forest Service's mission shifts depending

on the political climate.

Chris Wood is the president of Trout Unlimited.

It's a conservation group opposed to getting rid of the roadless rule and what used to work

for the Forest Service.

And he says the agency's mandate has never been static. Over time,

it's been pulled between these competing values, conservation versus exploitation, ecological

science versus economic pressure. So he says, this isn't the first time forest policy has sparked

this national debate. In fact, he told us this story for more than 100 years ago during the

administration of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt made conservation a defining feature of his presidency,

and with the help of Gifford Pinchot, his chief forester, the president spent his administration

increasing the number of protected acres of forest land, which infuriated

conservative lawmakers, especially those in the West. So in response, they passed a law to cut

off Roosevelt's power to create any new forest reserves in six Western states. But in that law, Wood

says there was a loophole.

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