Ed Markey: “I rise in opposition to the Herger amendment. In 2001, the Forest Service finally admitted the obvious--the road system…”

“I rise in opposition to the Herger amendment. In 2001, the Forest Service finally admitted the obvious--the road system through our national forests is far larger than it should be. Though the Forest Service can't tell us for sure, the best estimate is that the national forests are crisscrossed by more than 308,000 miles of roads. That is eight times the length of the entire United States interstate system. Forest roads could wrap around the Earth 15 times. From 1975 to 1985, the Forest road system doubled. And that is just the authorized roads. It is estimated that there are an additional 60,000 miles of user-created, illegal roads through the forests, cut through sensitive areas just because it looked like fun. The massive tangle of roads fragments the forest, destroying habitat, increasing erosion, and decreasing water quality. And the problems get worse each year as the Forest Service road maintenance budget falls further and further behind. Real maintenance needs for this massive road system just don't happen. The current backlog is estimated to be $10 billion.”