The Senate Committee on Agriculture voted on Sept. 16 to advance the Agricultural Act of 2026 (Farm Bill 2.0) to the Senate floor by a vote of 12-11 along party lines.  

​According to The Wild Line, "The bill weakens pesticide safety standards, cuts funding for conservation programs like EQIP and CSP, and grants sweeping forestry exemptions from environmental review, but its forestry title also adds more than 100,000 acres of new wilderness across the Shawnee, Ouachita, and George Washington-Jefferson National Forests, plus a feasibility study for a Benton MacKaye National Scenic Trail spanning Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina."

The Farm Bill now awaits full Senate debate and eventual conference committee reconciliation with the House-passed version.  

Outdoor writer and Augusta County historian Nancy Sorrells wrote this piece on preserving our roadless areas for her regular column in the Daily News Record, Sept. 2, 2026.

Link to the article in DNR, Sept 2, 2026, if you are a subscriber, or read the pdf below. 

Please join us at Braley Pond at noon on Saturday, Sept. 12, for a brownbag picnic lunch.  During lunch, we will hear speakers about the Roadless Area Conservation Rule that protects the best remaining portions of our national forests and what you can do to prevent it from being rescinded by the Forest Service.

The time to comment on the proposed rescission of the Roadless Rule is now! Deadline Sept. 21.  We will have postcards available for your comments.


The picnic will be followed by an optional guided nature hike at Braley Pond where we will see butterflies, wildflowers, mushrooms, and maybe even a bald eagle. The nature hike will be led by Cathy McNeill Batten.

Join us, learn, make new friends, and take a short hike. Bring your lunch, water, and a lawn chair.   

​Schedule
12:00 p.m.  Enjoy a picnic at Braley Pond Picnic area.  Bring your own lunch, a drink and a lawn chair.
 
12:30 p.m.  Learn about the Roadless Rule and what you can do to keep it from being rescinded.  Speakers include:  Paul Bugas, retired DWR Fisheries Manager; Spencer Phillips, Ecological Economist; Thomas Mulligan of Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition, Lynn Cameron of Friends of Shenandoah Mountain, and Pete Bsumek of the Sierra Club.

1:30 p.m.  Nature hike at Braley Pond, led by local naturalist Cathy McNeill Batten.

Everyone is welcome to this free event. See more details and register so we will know how many are coming.

Sponsored by Virginia Sierra Club - Shenandoah Group, Friends of Shenandoah Mountain, and the Virginia Wilderness Committee

​What is a roadless area?
Roadless areas are the most pristine, undeveloped portions of our national forests.  They are wild nature at its best. These beautiful and biologically rich areas have been protected from new roadbuilding, commercial logging and other development for 25 years.  The George Washington National Forest is the largest of the Eastern national forests and has the most roadless areas and the largest roadless areas.  Virginia is truly blessed, and we Virginians have a responsibility to stand up for these special places that are our natural heritage.
 
The Shenandoah Mountain-Elliott Knob-Crawford Mountain area has nine roadless areas.  Together, these make up the largest concentration of roadless areas in the Eastern U.S.  The largest one is the 27,000-acre Little River Roadless Area, which is the viewshed from Reddish Knob. 

Why are roadless areas important?
Roadless areas  provide:

• Clean drinking water.  Harrisonburg, Staunton, and many communities downstream benefit from clean drinking water from roadless areas on Shenandoah Mountain. This clean water is inexpensive to treat, an economic benefit to localities.
• Wildlife habitat.  Our roadless areas provide habitat for black bear, rare salamanders, and 250 species of birds, to name a few.  Our roadless areas on Shenandoah Mountain support some of the greatest biodiversity on the planet, with several species found nowhere else on earth. 
• Outdoor recreation.  Local people and visitors can hike, mountain bike, fish, hunt, camp, ride horses, study nature, and find solitude and spiritual renewal in our roadless areas. Enjoying these wild places is a core value of the American experience.
• Economic value to local communities.  Visitors from the region who recreate in roadless areas spend money for food, gas, overnight stays, campsites, supplies, and more, all of which benefit our local tourism economy.

Rescission of the Roadless Rule would pave the way for significant development projects completely at odds with these special places,  such as more off-road vehicle use, a dramatic increase in logging, more mineral and gas extraction, and potentially using public lands for data centers and solar farms.   ​

How to make an effective comment
The Forest Service has said they prefer electronic comments.  The process is pretty simple.
 
Go to this page on Regulations.gov  to  submit your comment.  Following are some pointers:


​Make it clear.  Say clearly that you want to keep the Roadless Rule in place and why.

Make it personal. Although this is a national change that will affect just about all national forests, it will be more compelling if you can describe your own personal experience with roadless areas and how rescinding the Roadless Rule will harm your interests.
 
Give your reasons.  Following are some examples:

• If you fish in Skidmore Fork or Dry River, you could express concern that these trout streams will be impaired by more siltation from new road construction and the water temperature will rise due to less tree shade.  This is bad for trout.
• If you care about native biodiversity, you could express concern that new roads will introduce invasive plants into pristine areas and there is no remedy for this impact.  Invasives get started where the soil is disturbed, and we do not have ways to eradicate them.
• If you are concerned about wildfires, you could point out that more wildfires start along roads than in roadless areas, so more roads means more wildfires.
• If you are concerned about what rescission of the Roadless Rule will lead to, you could say you  fear that more off-road vehicles  use will lead to more noise, more damage to fragile areas, more erosion, more litter, and less solitude.
• If you enjoy hiking or biking and are concerned that logging the roadless areas will ruin your enjoyment of your favorite trails, tell them you like to hike or bike in the cool shade of a forest.  Tell them there are plenty of other places where logging can take place in the national forest without going into roadless areas.

Many of us have a lot of passion about wanting our wild places to be there for future generations to enjoy.   Virginians, please let the Forest Service know what you want!

Go to this page on Regulations.gov to submit your comment on the Roadless Rule.

Please do not comment in the box below.  It is not the official website for Roadless Rule comments.
​

Good news!  The Shenandoah Mountain Act is included in the draft 2026 Farm Bill, which was rolled out of the Senate Agriculture Committee on June 23. 
​
This legislation would permanently protect a 92,500-acre Shenandoah Mountain National Scenic Area with four embedded Wilderness areas and safeguard wildlife habitat, outdoor recreation opportunities, and water quality.  The high mountain streams flowing off Shenandoah Mountain support healthy populations of native brook trout and provide municipal water for Harrisonburg, Staunton, and many other communities downstream.

Senators Kaine and Warner have introduced the Shenandoah Mountain Act in 2022, 2023, and again in 2025. 
​
Many thanks to Senators Kaine and Warner for championing this legislation and for working hard toward enactment.  Inclusion in the 2026 Farm Bill is a big step forward.

You are invited to a Rally for the Roadless Rule at 10:00 a.m. on June 6 at Briery Branch Reservoir, followed by a 6-mile hike from Reddish Knob to the Reservoir. This event is sponsored by the Virginia Sierra Club - Shenandoah Group and the Virginia Wilderness Committee.

The purpose of this event is to show support for the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which was first announced on Reddish Knob in 1999.  Many people enjoy the benefits of National Forest Roadless Areas, like recreation, clean drinking water, wildlife habitat, and scenic beauty, but don’t realize these areas are currently protected by the Roadless Rule.

After 25 years of our citizens enjoying all these benefits, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins proposed to revoke the Roadless Rule last year.  Losing the Roadless Rule would affect nearly 45 million acres of national forest land, including 394,000 acres on the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in Virginia.  On Shenandoah Mountain alone, 7 Roadless Areas  could be opened for road building, logging, methane gas drilling, and other commercial development.

Shenandoah Mountain boasts the largest concentration of Roadless Areas in the eastern United States.  The proposed Shenandoah Mountain National Scenic Area, now before the Senate, includes five Roadless Areas.  One of these, Little River, is 28,000 acres, the largest in the whole region. Senator Kaine has been working hard to get the Shenandoah Mountain Act passed to secure permanent protection of one of Virginia's finest natural areas.  While we are working toward enactment, we need to push back against rescission of the Roadless Rule.

Roadless areas are the best of what’s left on our national forest land.  The scenic beauty found on Shenandoah Mountain and the ecosystem services, like clean water and air, are priceless.  We have a lot to lose if the Roadless Rule is rescinded, not just on Shenandoah Mountain, but across the country.  Please consider joining the Rally or writing to Secretary Brooke Rollins after the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is released for public comment.  

See details and register for Rally for Roadless Rule.

Register for Reddish Knob Hike
​
View from Reddish Knob. Photo © Lynn Cameron

On April 29, Friends of Shenandoah Mountain and five other groups will join forces to protect the Hone Quarry Day Use Area, one of Shenandoah Mountain's premier wildflower sites, from begin overtaken by garlic mustard.  This invasive plant crowds out native spring wildflowers and poisons the soil.  

For the past two years, we have pulled all the garlic mustard we could find. Each year we find less.  We expect to find even less this year.

“We write to respectfully request a process to advance a bipartisan package of National Forest bills to the President’s desk. We are grateful for the Senate Agriculture Committee’s unanimous approval of these bills this Congress, and we now ask for your help in sending them to the President’s desk to be signed into law,” wrote the senators.

Read Senator Kaine's full press release:
www.kaine.senate.gov/press-releases/kaine-and-tillis-lead-bipartisan-group-of-senators-asking-senate-leadership-to-consider-national-forest-bills