Roadless areas

You might remember that toward the waning days of his administration, Bill Clinton decided to implement Dept of Agriculture rules a bit and declared millions of acres as "roadless" lands, protecting them from timber harvesting and other disruption. Now, while I like wilderness areas, the move seemed to be kind of slimy. Recall that at the same time, Clinton threw all sorts of regulations and administrative rule changes on the books, some without much thought. The Bush administration has since nullified some and kept some.
Clinton also pardoned a bunch of people who should not have been pardoned, but were contributors to his political success over the years. Very slimy, indeed.
So now the Bush administration has decided to put all the roadless lands up for negotiation. In other words, they would like to scrap them all, but they instead decided to have states go over the maps again and advise the feds on what lands really need to be roadless and which don't.
Now environmentalists say that we've done all this before, and that having public comment periods and committees to decide what areas still need this designation is redundant and a waste of money.

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski sharply criticized the Bush action, saying it forces the state to repeat work already completed by federal agencies in an effort to protect land that already had warranted and won protection.

And...

"He should take their roadless maps and hand them back and say, 'Here, protect what was protected,' " said Jay Ward of the Oregon Natural Resources Council. "How many public processes do we need in which they get to hear Oregonians say the same thing: 'Protect them, don't log them'? "

I think some Oregonians would disagree with you there, Mr. Ward.
But anyway, the article leaves this little gem until the waaaaay end of the article.

Administration officials and foresters said, though, that the state-based approach would yield more accurate and responsive decisions. Refined mapping since the Clinton decision found that 2.8 million acres of lands considered roadless at the time had roads in them.

I'd like to believe that the former process to designate these areas under the Clinton era was adequate and covered all the bases, but....... let's just say I'm skeptical.