Next Politics & Policy Article DENVER - A compromise plan that would allow some development on parts of Colorado's 4 million acres of roadless forests is drawing fire from critics who say it would leave the areas less protected than comparable public land in every other state. Environmentalists and others are increasing calls for Colorado to withdraw or change the proposal as state and U.S. Forest Service officials develop rules to enact it. Critics say the plan, started under former Republican Gov. Bill Owens, is much weaker than a 2001 rule that banned roads on about 58 million acres of forests nationwide. But the rule approved by the Clinton administration and a Bush administration policy that replaced it have been overturned and upheld by two different federal courts. Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat supported by...
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