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The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday that it is moving ahead with plans to rescind a rule that has restricted logging on federal lands for more than two decades. U.S. Secretary Brooke Rollins said the agency intends to open public comments Friday on its proposal to end the so-called “Roadless Rule,” an act that will affect as much as 45 million acres of federal land as well as millions of Americans who live near it. Opening a public comment period is the first step in repealing the rule. According to Rollins’ statement, members of the public will have until Sept. 19 to offer their opinions on the repeal, a timeframe that opponents of the plan denounced as inadequate. Roads are a key prerequisite for large-scale logging and mining projects, and the rule — enacted in 2001 at the end of the Clinton administration — has limited the number of development projects on Forest Service land.