The Trump administration is preparing to allow off-road vehicles on millions of acres of national forest land, according to a draft order prepared for Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary.
The move is a companion to President Trump’s decision on May 29 to repeal two executive orders that for decades had protected other public lands, including most national parks, from ATVs, dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles.
The undated Agriculture Department secretarial memorandum, which was reviewed by The New York Times, directs the U.S. Forest Service to identify which closed “roads, trails, areas, airstrips and waterways” in each national forest might be considered for year-round recreation access.
The memo would also immediately allow off-road vehicles in areas that the Forest Service has recommended to Congress should be granted wilderness protections. Right now, ATVs are not allowed in many of those areas, which are treated as if they were protected already. That move alone affects about 5 million acres, primarily in Idaho and Montana.
“As the United States marks 250 years of independence in 2026, we must shine a light on our nation’s greatest natural treasures and ensure every American can recreate on these majestic lands,” the memo said.
Michael Abboud, a spokesman for the Agriculture Department, said in a statement that the agency is “committed to ensuring Americans can responsibly access and enjoy their public lands while maintaining strong stewardship of natural resources.”
The pair of policies encouraging off-road vehicles is part of a Trump administration effort to de-emphasize conservation and promote recreation and economic activity on public lands.
In the coming weeks, the Forest Service is expected to issue a proposal to rescind a Clinton-era regulation that prevents new road-building in nearly 60 million acres of undeveloped land. (Mr. Abboud said any final decision on that policy would be the result of a process that includes environmental assessments and public comment.) The Bureau of Land Management has proposed to repeal a Biden-era rule that allowed public lands to be leased for conservation purposes. And the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed opening 95 percent of wildlife refuges to hunting and fishing.
Dan Hartinger, the senior policy director at the Wilderness Society, an environmental group, said ATVs, dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles could severely damage wilderness areas.
“These are some of the wildest natural areas we have left in our forests,” Mr. Hartinger said. In particular, he argued, allowing off-road vehicles in areas the agency has recommended be protected “threatens our ability to ever protect them in the future if they’re irrevocably damaged.”
Currently, the Forest Service has a lengthy process for evaluating and recommending to Congress land that could be included in the National Wilderness Preservation System. Only Congress holds the authority to officially designate land as wilderness and grant it special protections — but once a recommendation is made, the Forest Service is obligated to protect the qualities of the land that made it eligible for recommendation in the first place.
Under the draft order, the forest service will manage recommended wilderness areas for what is known as multiple-use, which aims to balance commercial, recreational and conservation activities. It also calls to restore “access to uses and levels prior to recommendation as wilderness” within 30 days.
For people who enjoy riding off-road vehicles, the move would be welcome. Federal regulations have shut down recreational access to public lands for half a century, said Ben Burr, the executive director of the Blue Ribbon Coalition, an association of motorized vehicle groups.
Mr. Burr also said the Forest Service has essentially usurped Congress’s role by treating recommended wilderness areas as if they already had federal protections. He said by opening those areas “more people can enjoy more public lands.”
One executive order that Mr. Trump repealed last week was signed by President Richard M. Nixon in 1972. It established strict criteria for the use of off-road vehicles on federal lands in an effort to minimize their environmental impact. The second, signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977, authorized the government to immediately shut down off-road driving if it was causing ecological damage.
Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities.
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