President Clinton's proposal to set aside forty million acres of national forest as roadless areas capitalizes on these changes. Politicians who are tied to the traditional economy of the West claim Clinton's initiative will eliminate jobs. However, roadless areas are undisturbed for a reason. Most of them have low economic value. Without implicit or explicit subsidies, resource extraction on these lands would be infeasible.
Federal lands are political lands and heavy subsidies the norm.
Therefore, the full costs of exploitation have been ignored, discounted, and obscured. Citizens of the New West demand better accounting of these costs. The extractive sector no longer drives the Western economy. The extractive industries are notoriously unstable, and commodity prices continue to cascade. The timber industry, for example, is leaving the West for the Southeast and foreign countries.