Shortly before President Clinton left office, the departing president implemented a rule-the so-called Roadless Area Conservation Rule-to prevent road building, logging, and mining in 58.5 million undeveloped acres of national forests. The Bush Administration's support for "forest-thinning" projects in densely-wooded, fire-prone areas, however, placed them in opposition to the road building and logging ban (road building and logging are interrelated; without forest roads, extracted timber cannot be transported). On June 9, 2003, the administration announced that it would exempt Alaska's Chugach and Tongass national forests from the Clinton-era ban on road building, logging, and mining in those areas. During debate on the 2004 Interior appropriations bill, Congressman Inslee (D-WA) proposed an amendment which would have prevented the administration from changing the Roadless Area Conservation Rule in such a way as to allow road building, logging, and mining in federal forestland. Progressives voted in favor of Inslee's amendment as a way to preserve the natural beauty of pristine wilderness areas and protect national forests from timber extraction and mining activities. The Inslee measure was defeated on a 185-234 vote which allowed the administration's proposed road building and logging activities in previously-protected forests to move forward.