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Articles: Snowmobile
A new federal recreation monitoring program under the EXPLORE Act will decide how OHV riding, dispersed camping, and snowmobiling get counted on public lands. BRC supports better data but is telling the agencies that visitation counts must never become a standalone excuse for closures or permit systems. Submit your comment before the July 29 deadline.
Oregon’s Blue Mountains forests are being rewritten for the first time since the 1990s, and one alternative would recommend 34,000 new wilderness acres and lock in 722,000 roadless acres where OHVs and mechanized use are banned outright. The choice between access and closure is on the table right now. Use the form below to submit your comment and stand up for access.
Oversized national monuments have locked up millions of acres of public land and set the stage for road closures, OHV restrictions, and lost access. A June 2026 court ruling in a case BRC helped bring confirmed these designations can now be challenged and reduced. Take action today and tell Congress, the Administration, and the courts to bring these boundaries back in line with the law.
Snowmobilers rode National Forests for decades until Subpart C turned winter access into a paperwork permission system where riding outside lines on a map is prohibited. Congress never ordered this rule, and the agency already has full authority to close areas where actual damage occurs. Sign BRC’s action alert telling the Forest Service to rescind Subpart C and restore common-sense winter access.
The Rio Grande National Forest is deciding where snowmobiles can ride across 1.84 million acres in southern Colorado, and the lines drawn now will be permanent. BRC supports Alternative 3 with key route additions from Alternative 4, but the draft plan contains wilderness buffer zones, arbitrary snow depth rules, and a contradictory preferred alternative that need fixing. Submit your comment before July 29 and tell the Forest Service to keep this terrain open.
The BLM’s Conservation and Landscape Health Rule is gone, and BRC has been working to kill it since the day it was proposed. Over three years, BRC mobilized members, submitted formal comments, worked with Congress, took meetings at the highest levels of the Administration, met with agency officials and monitored BLM offices for conservation lease applications. This is what sustained advocacy with help from our supporters looks like.
Executive orders dating back to 1972 created the “minimization criteria” that agencies now use to justify closing OHV access across public lands. What started as a balancing tool has become a legal weapon for litigation groups to lock riders out and collect legal fees. Sign the petition and tell Congress to rescind these orders.
Anti-access orgs have used the Endangered Species Act to close thousands of miles of public land routes with little evidence those closures are recovering any species. Congress is now proposing ESA amendments through budget reconciliation that would require agencies to show their work, weigh economic impacts, and speed up delisting when recovery goals are met. Fill out the form below to urge your representatives to support ESA reforms.
A new WDFW rule proposal would reverse the current open-unless-closed policy on more than one million acres of state-managed land, effectively closing every unsigned route with no realistic path to reopening them. The cost to rural communities, volunteers, and emergency responders will be significant. Contact WDFW now and demand they keep these lands accessible.
A fast-moving bill in the Minnesota Legislature could close 4.2 million acres of state forest to snowmobiles, ATVs, and motorized vehicles, dismantling one of the country’s best trail networks through litigation, petitions, and sweeping restrictions. SF 1245 is not just an OHV issue; it puts every user’s access at risk. Contact Minnesota legislators now and tell them to oppose SF 1245 today.