President Donald Trump has cleared the way for off-road vehicle use on federal lands. A new executive order revoked past rules limiting off-road vehicle use on federal land, calling the previous orders signed by presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter “unnecessary and counterproductive.”
The previous orders required federal agencies to take criteria into account when designating areas for off-road vehicle use, including environmental degradation, minimizing harassment of wildlife and their habitats, and to consider how the vehicle use conflicts with other uses of the land.
The new regulations, which Trump said reflect evolving technology, will make it easier for natural resource surveying and extraction. “These vague, subjective criteria often result in barriers to energy and timber production and utility maintenance, permit delays, and de facto bans on hiking and other forms of recreation that require accessing remote areas, all while doing little to benefit multiple use of federal lands,” Trump wrote.
Sue Fritzke, an executive council member of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks and former park superintendent, said opening federal lands to off-road vehicles “would denigrate the very resources those sites have been set aside to protect, with increased dust and noise and impacts on wildlife, endangered species and visitors.”
