The U.S. Forest Service is reviewing U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer’s Aug. 12 rejection of a seven-year ban on building and logging on nearly 60 million acres of undeveloped national forests as environmentalists appealed the controversial court ruling. Brimmer ordered a permanent injunction against the federal government’s roadless rule in response to a lawsuit filed by Wyoming, saying the rule was enacted in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Wilderness Act.
“The Forest Service, in an attempt to bolster an outgoing President’s environmental legacy, rammed through an environmental agenda that itself violates the country’s well-established environmental laws,” he stated. “This court is of the opinion that the Forest Service violated the public interest when it flagrantly and cavalierly railroaded this country’s present environmental laws in an attempt to build an outgoing president’s enduring fame.”
Conservation groups that intervened in support of the Forest Service were the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, Pacific Rivers Council, Sierra Club, Wilderness Society, and the Wyoming Outdoor Council. They filed an appeal to Brimmer’s ruling in the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, asking the appellate court to prohibit development in roadless areas while the case proceeds.
The Forest Service adopted the roadless rule in January 2001 in the final days of the Clinton administration. It prohibits logging, mining, and other development on 58.5 million acres in 38 states and Puerto Rico. Roadless areas make up nearly one-third of Forest Service lands and 2 percent of the nation’s land mass. The Clinton-era restrictions were beset by legal challenges almost immediately upon their implementation.
Brimmer’s latest order echoes a similar ruling he made five years ago in response to a lawsuit filed by Wyoming four months after the rule took effect. His 2003 ruling was rendered moot when the Bush administration decided not to appeal and instead issued its own rules for roadless areas, which required governors to petition the federal government to protect roadless areas in their states.
Conservation groups and attorneys general from Oregon, Washington, California, and New Mexico later challenged the Bush policy. In 2006, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte of San Francisco set aside the Bush rule and reinstated the Clinton rule, which prompted Wyoming to renew its complaint in federal court.
Mike Anderson, an attorney with The Wilderness Society, said he believed the California decision is still in effect despite Brimmer’s ruling. Wyoming Attorney General Bruce Salzburg said the injunction was appropriate because roads might be needed in national forests to fight fires and insect infestations.
Users of public lands in Colorado and Idaho could soon be subject to new rules for the roadless areas of those states, which have pursued their own rules under the federal Administrative Procedure Act, a broad law that allows states to petition the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, to make changes to rules for federal lands.
The U.S. Forest Service is working on a draft plan for managing Idaho’s roadless lands, which was started by former Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, written by former Gov. Jim Risch, and backed by Gov. Butch Otter. Risch, now lieutenant governor, said he expects his state’s rules for its 9.3 million acres of roadless areas to take effect this year. Jonathan Oppenheimer, a forest specialist for the Idaho Conservation League, said if Brimmer’s decision holds, Idaho could have the only roadless protection plan in the nation.
Last month in Colorado, the Forest Service published proposed rules for that state’s four million acres of roadless areas, written in conjunction with the state government.