Motorized Users Have No Path to Victory Through NEPA

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), established in the 1970s, mandates that government agencies evaluate the environmental impact of their decisions. Planning processes, such as travel management planning, require federal agencies to thoroughly assess how their management plans will affect endangered species habitats, wilderness areas, cultural sites, and other areas protected under federal law and administrative decisions. In other words, any decision by an agency to leave a specific road open in a travel management plan inherently introduces a negative environmental impact, which must undergo strict scrutiny under NEPA.

NEPA is inherently designed to benefit environmental interests that strongly oppose traditional uses of public lands. The public participation process mandated by travel management rules under NEPA does not favor motorized users. Since NEPA’s purpose is to scrutinize the environmental impact of agency decisions, it inherently contradicts any efforts to protest road closures. Keeping a road open represents the very environmental impact that NEPA seeks to eliminate when roads are closed.

NEPA wastes taxpayer money by forcing motorized users to engage in administrative processes that do not support their interests. To meet the requirements for an appeal under NEPA, participants must argue procedural errors—which, if corrected, typically allow the plans to proceed—or raise concerns that support the implementation of such policies. However, environmental concerns are fundamentally incompatible with the goal of maintaining motorized access unless the intention is to support road closures.

NEPA’s processes and public participation periods are structured to facilitate the implementation of environmental policy, not to oppose the negative effects such policies have on traditional land uses. However, to bring civil litigation against an agency for closing a motorized road or trail, individuals must first exhaust the administrative procedures under NEPA—a process that could take decades.

The path to victory for motorized access does not lie within the NEPA process. Success can only be achieved by overturning federal regulations that mandate the travel management process and returning land management authority to the states.