Environmental groups from throughout Montana blasted the Bush Administration's move on Thursday that could open up nearly one-third of all remote national forest lands to road building, logging and other ventures, while the decision was praised by local timber industry and multiple-use representatives.

The 58.5 million acres involved, mainly in Alaska and in Western states, had been put off limits to development by former President Clinton, eight days before he left office in January 2001. Clinton's "Roadless Rule" covered 6.4 million acres across Montana.

Under the Bush plan announced Thursday, governors will have 18 months to petition to change the Bush Administration's plan, which would open about 34 million acres of national forest to road construction. New management plans would have to be written for the other 24 million acres before road building can begin.

The governors can petition for more or fewer development restrictions on these roadless lands. The Forest Service will review and have final say over the petitions.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer hasn't had the time to evaluate the Bush plan, according to staff members, so they're not sure how he'll respond.

"We haven't had a chance to look into it," Mike Volesky, Schweitzer's natural resources policy adviser, said on Thursday. "We will take some time to see exactly what it says, and go from there."

But others are quick to voice their opinions on what the Montana Wilderness Association calls the Bush "Road It" rule.

"This is a sham," said John Gatchell, conservation director for MWA. "(The Roadless areas) are the pillars of Montana's outdoor traditions, where we take our families to camp, hike, fish and pack in to hunt elk the Montana way.

"There is no public cry to build roads in these places. It's a senseless assault that would only make sense in Washington D.C. to big corporate lobbyists."

But to Ellen Engstedt, vice president of the Montana Wood Products Association, the Bush plan is a welcome opportunity to look at what areas should remain roadless and where lands could benefit from logging or other forest management.

She agrees with Gatchell and others that some places aren't suitable for logging, but said that the 2001 Roadless Rule included lands that already have roads on them.

"We had a lot of problems with the Clinton rule, so we are glad to see the Bush administration take this on to try to do a better job, to take the time ... to look at what should be included in the roadless boundaries and what should be left out," Engstedt said. "We're not in favor of punching new roads where they shouldn't be, yet we can do a lot of timber harvesting off of areas where there are already roads.

"In the old rule, 40 percent of the inventoried areas were at moderate to high risk of wildfires, and there are some of those areas where the Forest Service would like to go in and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire."

Tim Ravndal, president of the Montana Multiple Use Association, also applauded the Bush plan. He said Clinton's Roadless Rule created de facto wilderness areas, and they now have an opportunity to revoke that.

"This needs to be nipped in the bud," Ravndal said. "Our governor needs to look at this from the standpoint that multiple-use lands need to be maintained as just that."

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in announcing the rule that his agency "is committed to working closely with the nation's governors to meet the needs of our local communities while protecting and restoring the health and natural beauty of our national forests."

The Agriculture Department, which includes the Forest Service, said governors can base their petitions on requests to protect public health and safety; reduce wildfire risks to communities; conserve wildlife habitat; maintain dams, utilities or other infrastructure; or ensure that citizens have access to private property.

The Forest Service calls the new process voluntary and is setting up a national advisory committee on the rule.

"If a governor does not want to propose changes ... then no petition need be submitted," the agency said in briefing documents.

Chris Mehl, communications manager for the Bozeman-based Wilderness Society, called the move "a step backward."

"The Forest Service has all the roads it needs to manage the forest and more than it can afford to maintain," Mehl said. "The Forest Service would serve Americans better if it spent its limited budget on protecting clean water and maintaining trails and campgrounds. That's what Americans treasure about public lands."

Economist Mike Garrity, who also is executive director of the Missoula-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies, said that the Bush plan puts the needs of the timber industry ahead of clean drinking water and wildlife habitat.

He adds that the Forest Service already has a $100 billion backlog in road maintenance on more than 400,000 miles of existing roads.

"Instead of building more roads for timber corporations, we believe the Forest Service should take care of the 400,000 miles of roads that they already have," Garrity said. "The Forest Service can create more jobs restoring our nation's watersheds than they can building new logging roads into them."

Areas in Montana that are of particular concern to the conservation groups include the East Face Cabinet Roadless Area in the Kootenai National Forest, the Standard Peak Roadless Area in the Flathead National Forest and the Rocky Mountain Front.

The Clinton-era rule has been much debated in federal court. Former President Clinton's Roadless Rule continued the 1998 ban on building or reconstructing roads in 43 million acres of roadless federal forests. However, other uses for those lands, such as grazing, mining or logging, were to be left to the decision of local foresters.

That's been the general policy of the Helena National Forest for years, which has been reluctant to create new roads recently. Forest representatives have said that at this point, they don't have the means to maintain existing roads, let alone construct new ones.

A federal court in Idaho had issued a preliminary injunction against the roadless rule in 2001, but the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit overturned the injunction based on an appeal by environmental groups.

Then in 2003, a federal court in Wyoming overturned the rule. Many of those same groups appeals to the Denver-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, which heard arguments Wednesday.

The Forest Service believes its new rule "helps us to move forward with a policy that is not clouded by legal uncertainty, as was the case with the 2001 rule," says a current agency document entitled "National Key Messages & Talking Points."

Jim Angell, an attorney with Earthjustice law firm in Denver who argued the case, called that just an excuse for pushing through a new rule that represents ''a huge step back for the protection of our most pristine lands."

''Really, this is an effort to rush this rule through before the 10th Circuit can reverse that Wyoming judge, just like the 9th Circuit did before," he said. ''It's incredibly cynical of them to use that judge's ruling as an excuse."

Reporter Eve Byron can be reached at 447-4076 or by e-mail at eve.byron@helenair.com