PORTLAND – Rep. Tom Allen joined the Sierra Club, National Environmental Trust and other groups Tuesday in calling on the Bush administration to protect national forest roadless areas.

The Clinton-era rule placed a ban on development, such as road-building and logging, in 58 million acres of national forest.

President Bush has proposed replacing it with a state review process that critics say could open up the forests to development. A 60-day public comment period on the new rule ends Sept. 14.

Allen said he was “outraged” by the policy that he said would leave unprotected up to 200,000 acres of roadless forest in the White Mountain National Forest that straddles the Maine-New Hampshire border.

“Roadless areas in our national forests are the most pristine and ecologically important forest lands in our nation,” Allen said in a statement. “They include our last temperate rain forest, our largest swaths of old growth and our best wildlife habitat for endangered species.”

Maine’s portion of the White Mountain National Forest includes 53,000 acres, of which 6,000 are classified as roadless land.

Other organizations joining Allen at the news conference were the American Lands Alliance, Forest Ecology Network, Environment Maine, Restore: The North Woods and the Maine Council of Churches.

Before announcing the change in July, the Bush administration had been weighing for nearly two years changes to the roadless rule, which blocks road construction in nearly one-third of national forests as a way to prevent logging and other commercial activity.

Allen, D-Maine, said the Bush administration chose to alter a plan that was made after 600 public hearings and comment from more than 2 million citizens supporting the policy. “I am outraged now that the Bush administration has proposed to gut the policy,” he said.

Critics say there already are 500 miles of logging roads in the White Mountains National Forest, and that it should not be up to governors to decide whether to build more roads on national land.