By JENNIFER 8. LEE

December 24, 2003

WASHINGTON

The decision stems from the settlement of a lawsuit between Alaska and the federal government over the so-called roadless rule, which prohibited the building of roads in 58.5 million acres of undeveloped national forest across the country.

Environmental groups attacked the administration for the settlement in July, saying it was an underhanded strategy for circumventing the regulation. Conservation groups said the administration had failed to defend the roadless designation adequately.

But Ray Massey, a spokesman for the Forest Service in Alaska, said that agency officials felt there were already enough protections for the Tongass. "We didn't really need roadless to protect the Tongass," he said in a telephone interview. "We already have a forest plan in place to protect the Tongass."

Before putting the roadless designation into effect, the Forest Service had drawn up plans for the immediate development of 300,000 acres in the Tongass. Environmental groups say that about 9.6 million acres of the Tongass could be affected by the dropping of the ban.

The roadless rule was put in place after a two-year process that included 600 scientific studies and two rounds of public comments that generated almost two million responses, most of them in favor of the rule.

Since its inception, the rule has been challenged through a host of legal, legislative and administrative efforts. The conflicts have highlighted the tensions between environmental protection and economic development, and between state autonomy and federal oversight.

Environmental groups supported the roadless rule as a way to curb the development and logging that had already affected half of national forest land. But Western states and the timber industry said the rule was unjustified in its sweeping scope — touching about 30 percent of national forest acreage in the country.

Industry groups and states have made a concerted effort to attack the rule through lawsuits around the country. In July, a federal district court judge in Wyoming suspended the rule nationwide. Environmental groups are appealing the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver...

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