FReepmail me to be added or removed to the ECO-PING list!
Posted on 10/07/2005 9:34:11 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Twenty environmental groups sued the Bush administration over a decision to repeal Clinton-era regulations that blocked road construction, logging and industrial development on more than 90,000 square miles of the nation's last untouched forests.
In the lawsuit filed Thursday, the Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, Greenpeace and other groups challenged the U.S. Forest Service decision earlier this year to reverse the 2001 "roadless rule" that protected 58.5 million acres of undeveloped national forest.
"These are the last wild areas of North America, and there is overwhelming public support for their protection from development," said Kristen Boyles, a staff attorney for Oakland-based Earthjustice. "Repealing these protections have significant impacts."
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, comes about a month after the attorneys general for California, New Mexico and Oregon brought a similar legal challenge. Both lawsuits allege the Bush administration violated federal law by not studying the environmental impacts of repealing the Clinton rule.
The U.S. Forest Service would not comment because the litigation is pending, said spokeswoman Heidi Valetkevitch.
Before he left office in January 2001, President Bill Clinton issued the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which banned development and road building on almost one-third of the nation's 192 million acres of national forest land. The move was praised by environmentalists, but criticized by timber interests.
In May, the Forest Service issued a new policy that required states to work with Forest Service officials to devise management plans for individual forests. Governors were given 18 months either to petition the agency to maintain protections or to allow roads and development for their states' forests.
Administration officials and timber industry representatives point out that the Clinton rule was struck down in 2003 by a federal judge who said the executive branch had overstepped its authority when it issued the regulation. In July, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed environmentalists' appeal of that ruling, saying the new Bush rule made the issue moot.
Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, called the latest lawsuit "a sad case of the abuse of courts for political ends."
West said the environmental groups should participate in the process of determining how individual forests are managed instead of fighting the new regulations. He also said that allowing road construction in undeveloped forests would help prevent catastrophic forest fires.
"If we let Mother Nature run rampant, we're going to get these 100,000-acre fires, and it will take centuries for those areas to recover," West said.
Environmentalists argue that roadless forests must be protected because they are some of the most pristine places in the United States, with clean drinking water, unspoiled habitat for fish and wildlife and unrivaled hiking and fishing.
"Because they haven't been logged, mined or roaded, they're still in their natural condition," said Doug Heiken of the Oregon Natural Resources Council. "We should pass on that natural legacy to future generations in as good a condition as we inherited them."
The enviro wackos would rather see the forests burn rather than be managed.
FReepmail me to be added or removed to the ECO-PING list!
Burning can be a part of management- its the catastrophic fires that are the problem.
"It's a bunch of tree-huggin' hippie crap!" - Cartman.
Last resort of Washington environmental lobbyists - file a lawsuit. Happens all the time.
It reminds me, though, that there's a tree in my backyard that needs to be cut down.
"The enviro wackos would rather see the forests burn rather than be managed."
That can not be said enough. Their refusal to allow forrest management and logging has cost billions in fire response and damage. I live in MS and it is largely wooded. I have never heard of a forest fire here or in my neighboring states. Of course, we log and cut roads through ours.
Fine, petition your congress critters to get a law passed.
Unless this sort of lawsuit abuse is brought under control there is little chance of achieving more important goals such as energy independence.
please add me to your list
"These are the last wild areas of North America..." said Kristen Boyles
I didn't know all of Alaska, Northern Quebec, Baffin Island, and the Yukon had complete road networks already.
I think I know a little bit about the forests. I have travelled the original old trail from Colterville, past the Buena Vista and Little Nellie Falls into Foresta and Yosemite Valley. I do not know if it is still passable since I believe the Park felled a huge trail at the park border.
I have watched the Cherry Burn area regrow (Cherry Lake, part of Hetch Hetchy system), much from enviro plantings of trees so close together that squirrels cannot find a home. I have been over the Tuolomne Burn area and have seen its devastation.
I know that the cattle grazing in the Sierras past Long Barn (Sonora Area) have given the deer herd anthrax and the Tuolomne herd has been decimated because of the disease.
Yes, I know how friendly the enviro wachos are.
OK, enviros, how about this, first we beat you in court, then we clearcut all X,000 acres, then when we have harvested your precious wood, and destroyed the nesting habitat for all the wildlife, then we are going to sell the ill gotten booty of centuries, gotten by hook and crook throught western statehood negotiation, or should that be called, demands.
Then, you enviros can live with the continuation of what the pioneers of this country were doing to subdue the land for man. Huh? How about it? I can't hear you, what was that you said? Just shut up like most of the enviros in my area have been forced to do by the sheer obvious nature of what leaving things to nature has wrought, nothing but destruction and hardly anything but.
If make that "when".
In Alaska, 2004 the following fires burned these acres:
Boundary 537,098
North Dag 419,884
Billy Creek 466,085
Dall City 416,776
Chicken #1 429,102
Pingo 415,959
Porcupine 284,594
Winter Trail 316,910
Camp Creek 175,815
Bonanza Creek 287,200
Gardiner Creek 125,811
Edwards Creek 239,575
Wolf Creek 210,233
Bolgen Creek 196,035
Creek 171,915
Hodanza River 163,239
That is just one year, although a bad year. 2004 Alaska had a total of 6,724,146.6 acres burned. 2005 has been better but not good at 4,609,176.5 acres so far.
...and PS what says your view of the environment is superior to mine or anyone elses, especially those who are educated in the care and feeding of all things environmental? Huh?
It took the AP eight paragraphs to tell us that the "Clinton-era" rule has twice been knocked down by the courts.
It should be called a "post-Clinton era rule" since the Clinton administration passed it in its last month and never had to abide by it.
The rule was a poison pill to cause the Bush Administration problems in areas otherwise loyal to Republicans.
are you debating yourself, lol?
PING!
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