A nearly 25-year-old rule that prohibits logging on national forest land is being halted by the Trump administration in order to reduce the risk of wildfires, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced on Monday. 

The move comes after multiple instances of feuding between Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) over the governor’s responses to wildfires in the Golden State over recent years. 

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California faced the costliest wildfire in history in January, and Trump argued Newsom was to blame for the devastation because of overall poor management of the state’s resources after he had warned the governor for years about the matter.

In 2018, Trump visited a wildfire disaster site in California and said while standing next to Newsom, “You gotta take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest, very important…”

The “roadless rule,” which the country has been following since it was adopted in the last days of former President Bill Clinton’s administration in 2001, hindered adequate road construction and “responsible timber production,” Rollins said at the annual meeting of the Western Governors Association. Under the rule, road building and logging on about 59 million acres of national forest land was prohibited.

“President Trump is removing absurd obstacles to commonsense management of our natural resources by rescinding the overly restrictive roadless rule,” Rollins said. “This move opens a new era of consistency and sustainability for our nation’s forests. It is abundantly clear that properly managing our forests preserves them from devastating fires and allows future generations of Americans to enjoy and reap the benefits of this great land.”

However, whether logging prevents wildfires or contributes to the devastation is unclear. Some scientists say climate change and decades of fire suppression have allowed the worsening of wildfires. Other experts, including environmental groups like The Wilderness Society, say logging restrictions can have dire consequences in some areas.  

“Any attempt to revoke it is an attack on the air and water we breathe and drink, abundant recreational opportunities which millions of people enjoy each year, havens for wildlife and critical buffers for communities threatened by increasingly severe wildfire seasons,” Josh Hicks, conservation campaigns director at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement to the Associated Press on the USDA’s plans.

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Center for Western Priorities political director Rachael Hamby told the outlet that logging exacerbates climate change and the Trump administration’s rescission is “nothing more than a massive giveaway to timber companies at the expense of every American and the forests that belong to all of us.”

A formal notice from the Agriculture Department to rescind the roadless rule will be releasing in the coming weeks, according to a statement by the department.