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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 16, 2008
Contact:
Paul Hughes, executive director: (415) 974-4201; paul@forestsforever.org
Marc Lecard, communications manager: (415) 974-4202; marc@forestsforever.org
Administration
gives up appeal on forest planning rule
Forest Service rule rewrite will start over again from square
one
The
Bush administration Forest Service on Jan. 9 withdrew an appeal
of the March 2007 court decision that threw out its rewrite of a
land management rule affecting the entire national forest system.
Several timber industry groups had joined the case as intervenors
in appealing the court’s decision. The industry groups have
also agreed to drop the appeal.
“Dropping the doomed appeal was the most sensible thing the
Bush administration could have done at this point,” said Paul
Hughes, executive director of Forests Forever. “But they have
more potentially illegal rules in the pipeline.”
The rejected forest management rule, adapted in 2005, would have
covered 192 million acres of national forests. It allowed the Forest
Service to “categorically” exclude its forest management
plans from the requirements of the National Environmental Policy
Act (NEPA), meaning the plans would be exempt from environmental
review under the act.
In March 2007, Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton ruled that the Bush administration
rewrite of the planning rule failed to meet the environmental protection
requirements of the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), and failed
to follow NEPA, the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and the Administrative
Procedure Act. The court restrained the agency from using the 2005
rules until all the relevant laws have been complied with.
National forests and grasslands cover 192 million acres in 42 states.
Every national forest has a forest management plan that governs
land use decisions– what can be done, and where– within
the forest. These plans must be rewritten every 15 years.
Under the Bush administration, the Forest Service has expanded its
use of categorical exclusions to “fuels reduction” projects
and salvage logging. The 2005 rule change was the first attempt
to categorically exclude entire forest management plans from NEPA.
The original lawsuit had been brought by a coalition of environmental
groups headed by Defenders of Wildlife and including the Sierra
Club, The Wilderness Society, and 15 other groups.
“The Forest Service’s attempt to cut out public input
and to make forest and wildlife protections optional was doomed
to failure from the beginning,” Hughes said.
“Unfortunately the administration seems to have learned nothing
from this case. Unless the new rule proposed by the administration
allows public influence on the decison-making process, and offers
genuine protections for forests and wildlife, not merely symbolic
ones, the courts will likely reject it as well.”
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