I’m adding two valuable memos by Monte Mills and Martin Nie to the Roadless Rule resources posted yesterday. Mills is the Charles I. Stone Professor of Law and Director of the Native American Law Center at the University of Washington, where his work focuses on Federal Indian law, Tribal sovereignty, and natural resources. Nie is Professor of Natural Resources Policy and Director of the Bolle Center for People & Forests at the University of Montana, with particular expertise in federal public lands governance.
Their September 2025 memo provides historical and legal background on Tribal interests in the original Roadless Rule and later Idaho, Colorado, and Tongass rulemakings. Their new August 28, 2026 memo focuses on USDA’s proposed rule and Draft EIS, including what they describe as a “shell game” of shifting protection from a national rule to forest- and project-level processes while some of those protections are themselves being weakened. They also report that 108 of 126 current forest plans, about 86%, provide no substantive recognition or meaningful protection of Tribal rights or interests.
These pair well with the ILPC papers that I created and posted yesterday, which approach the rulemaking from a different direction. One analyzes what Tribes actually placed in the 2025 administrative record and USDA’s response to those concerns, while the other addresses strategic considerations for Tribal Nations before the September 21 comment deadline, including relevant legal doctrines and other hooks for building and preserving the administrative record.
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