Who Owns The West? Oil & Gas Leases in America's West

On January 12 2001, the Clinton administration adopted a rule that would prohibit road construction, reconstruction and timber harvest on nearly 60 million acres of inventoried roadless forest service land, 41.8 million acres of which is located in the 12 western states analyzed by EWG. On July 12, 2004, the Bush Administration proposed a new rule that would allow state governors to decide whether to continue to protect roadless acres within their states.

State	Roadless Acres
Arizona	1,174,000
California	4,416,000
Colorado	4,433,000
Idaho	9,322,000
Montana	6,397,000
Nevada	3,186,000
New Mexico	1,597,000
Oregon	1,965,000
South Dakota	80,000
Utah	4,013,000
Washington	2,015,000
Wyoming	3,257,000
12 state total	41,855,000

Source: Forest Service, Roadless Acres (Roadless). Accessed online July 27, 2004 at http://roadless.fs.fed.us. The original Clinton Administration rule can be found at 66 FR 3244 (January 12, 2001).