The Fight for Environmental and Climate Protections Continues

Protections on public land are continuing to be dismantled by the current administration. The latest attack is again on our national forests. Since 2001, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule has stopped roads from being built in national forests, to prevent commercial logging and conserve pristine wilderness. This act, also known as the roadless rule, forbids new construction of roads in undeveloped or “inventoried roadless areas” designated by the Forest Service. 

The Department of Agriculture is arguing in bad faith that this act prevents wildfire treatment by not allowing more access for firefighting crews and is looking to remove the law. In reality, if the roadless rule is appealed, the chances of a wildfire occurring increases as humans, who cause 85% of wildfires, gain easier entry to mostly undisturbed areas. 

This move is a thinly veiled attempt to increase commercial logging and dismantle our national forests. Creating roads in mostly undisturbed land makes biodiversity plummet as land becomes more fragmented. For example, grizzly bears, whose population was threatened due to habitat destruction and fragmentation as well as human extermination, generally do not go near roads and actively avoid them. When their habitat is fragmented, they do not cross roads into territory they need for survival, or if they do, they may experience collisions and their population will experience great decline. Bad faith arguments about wildfire prevention do not take away from the blatant effort of working for bad actors and against the greater public that plagues this administration. 

The current administration’s attempts at deflagration of the general public’s given rights to pristine wilderness and good environmental health continue in seemingly every sector, especially for the ever-so-fast growing sectors in technology, often the highest polluters. Data centers are getting a cut of unfolding environmental protection assaults. In a pursuit to make moves quickly while the law catches up to them, data centers have been granted a pass to pollute. 

Toward the end of July, the Environmental Protection Agency declared that power plants not supplying energy to the grid may be able to bypass federal pollution laws, specifically the Acid Rain Program from the Clean Air Act when they supply power to data centers. They believe that this will speed up the production of artificial intelligence infrastructure, while the public bears the environmental health-related costs. 

Doom and gloom is not felt by all who protect and conserve the environment. Many environmental protection advocates are not relenting in their fight to oppose these detrimental policy changes. Former employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are recreating a public site that got axed due to an executive order last June.

Climate.gov was discontinued and stopped updating after June 24, 2025, as seen on the bottom of their homepage, due to the current administration’s anti-environmental movement. Now, Climate.us is taking its place as the once easily navigable and accurate climate site. Developers wish to keep a public repository of climate data available for analysis and review, with a nonpartisan, educational delivery. The scientists and climate professionals behind the website aim to keep it out of the government’s control, due to it being so easy to get rid of when administrations changed. With scientists and environmental professionals safeguarding and keeping climate data alive, hope continues for greater environmental protections.