EarthJustice: Bush Administration Abandons Efforts to Undermine Wildlife Protections in National Forests
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 8, 2008
5:00 PM
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CONTACT: EarthJustice
Trent Orr, Earthjustice 510-550-6700
Pete Frost, Western Environmental Law Center, (541) 543-0018
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Bush Administration Abandons Efforts to Undermine Wildlife Protections
in National Forests
U.S. Forest Service and Timber Industry Drop Appeals of District Court
Decision
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WASHINGTON, DC - January 8 - Earthjustice attorneys have learned that the U.S.
Forest Service and timber industry intervenors have abandoned appeals of
the decision by U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton which invalidated
the Bush administration's 2005 National Forest planning regulations.
The Bush rule sought to remove key environmental protections governing
the 191-million-acre National Forest System. Regulations issued in 2005
sought to overhaul the land-management planning process for national
forests by eliminating mandatory protections for wildlife and clean
water, and mandatory limits on timber harvesting. These regulations also
sharply curtailed public participation in the process. Among the
measures the Bush administration attempted to discard was a key
regulatory guarantee of wildlife viability in the national forests that
had been in place since the Reagan administration.
"We are glad the Bush administration has thrown in the towel. The
national forest planning rules are like the Constitution for our
national forests, and the Bush administration tried to throw out the
Bill of Rights," said Trent Orr of Earthjustice, who argued the case
before Judge Hamilton. "The Bush rule made any wildlife provisions in
forest management plans aspirational, not mandatory. Our wildlife
deserve better than a hope-and-a-prayer planning system."
Judge Hamilton found that Bush administration officials had bypassed
legally required environmental review and endangered species protections
in creating a new management system for the national forests that
eliminated enforceable environmental protections from the forest
planning process. Judge Hamilton also ruled that the administration had
sprung its final forest planning rules on the public without sufficient
notice of the paradigm shift that the rules accomplished. Her ruling
prohibits the "implementation and utilization" of the Bush rules
nationwide.
A Victory for Public Participation
The National Forest Management Act requires the Forest Service to
protect wildlife in the national forests and to allow citizens to
participate fully in management decisions. The Bush rules invalidated
the 1982 standards for national forest management instituted by Ronald
Reagan that protected species and required public review of the
environmental impacts of proposed national forest plans governing timber
harvest levels and natural resource protection.
The court's invalidation of the Bush rules is a strong signal that full
public involvement in decisions regarding their public forests must be
restored.
Earthjustice, represented Defenders of Wildlife, The Wilderness Society,
the Sierra Club and Vermont Natural Resources Council, in the legal
challenge to the Bush administration rule changes.
Pete Frost and Marc Fink from the Western Environmental Law Center
represented Citizens for Better Forestry in a similar case that will
also end with this motion of dismissal.
Read the motion of dismissal filed by the forest service here
Original decision by Judge Hamilton here
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