Posted on 09/20/2006 11:04:48 AM PDT by SmithL
SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge Wednesday reinstated a Clinton administration ban on the building of roads in untouched section.
U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte sided with states and environmentalists who sued to protect forest land.
The Clinton administration prohibited logging, mining and other development on 58.5 million acres of forest land in 38 states and Puerto Rico. In 2005, the Bush administration replaced the rule with a voluntary state-by-state petition process.
The judge overturned the new regulations.
Slap this bitch in jail
Not such a far out thought, you know.
Bush needs to issue an EO
Judge shopping again, huh?
Because the judge thought Clinton was still president???? What a BS ruling.
There, fixed it.
yale law school clintonista
Not to throw cold water on such a prime opportunity to slam yet another megalomaniac Clinton-appointed judge, but won't this decision only apply in the Peopl's Respublik of California? Or even more tightly, the district suffering under this woman's jurisdiction?
I see yet another Ninth Circus reversal in our future.
She's a lib. Stopped U.S. Navy from using sonar that might hurt marine life.
http://www.law.com/regionals/ca/judges/usdistrict/laporte.htm
ABC Radio is crowing about this...returning to the good ol' days of Slick Willie.
Now their forests can burn freely without any intervention from those pesky firefighters.
Is it the law now that an aproved president's EOs are not revocable? Actually I am waiting for the 9th to declare unconstitutional an article of the Constitution. There is precedent, of sorts, for that. The Colorado court did that for a duly enacted provision of the State Constitution.
....now we can watch them burn to the ground because fire crews won't have access.
What a moron.
And the Mexican Drug Cartels can grow their drugs without interference, causing more destruction to the environment than an access road so they can be caught, ever could.
http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2006/09/mexican-border-has-moved-800-miles.html
Federal Judge Agrees: LFA May Pose
"Irreparable Harm" to Marine Life
On August 26, 2003, United States Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of California, Elizabeth D. Laporte, imposed a "tailored" injunction on the Navy, preventing unfettered deployment of its Low Frequency Active sonar (LFA).
"The Marine Mammal Protection Act, for example, reflects the public's profound interest in safeguarding whales, dolphins and other magnificent mammals that still live in the ocean. Unfortunately, the populations of many of these creatures, once abundant, have shrunk and some are on the verge of extinction."
-U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte
Although the Judge was unwilling to ban the Navy from using LFA under any circumstances, especially in these days of heightened terrorism alert, she does make it quite clear that a drastic curtailment of the Navy's plans was vital to the protection of all ocean life. She concludes, "It is undisputed that marine mammals, many of whom depend on sensitive hearing for essential activities like finding food and mates and avoiding predators, and some of whom are endangered species, will at a minimum be harassed by the extremely loud and far traveling LFA sonar.... Further, endangered species including whales, listed salmon and sea turtles, will be in LFA sonar's path. There is little margin of error without threatening their survival."
Her detailed 73-page decision weighs the harms to the marine environment and its inhabitants of full deployment and to the United States Navy of banning deployment, and concludes that a permanent injunction could be "carefully tailored to reduce the risk to marine mammals and endangered species by restricting the sonar's use in areas that are particularly rich in marine life, while still allowing the Navy to use this technology for testing and training in a variety of oceanic conditions." Representatives for the environmental plaintiffs and Naval defendants have been ordered to meet on October 7 to iron out the details of the injunction.
Judge Laporte's decision notes that the buffer zones around biologically-rich coastal areas, in which LFA deployment would be prohibited, must be extended beyond the current limit of 12 miles. Additionally, the Navy will be prevented from deploying the sonar when marine mammals and endangered sea creatures such as turtles are known to migrate, breed, or feed, during certain times or in certain areas.
The Judge's decision came after years of rulings by the National Marine Fisheries Service in support of authorizing the Navy's LFA deployment and subsequent legal challenges by environmental and animal protection organizations.
The plaintiffs argued that the clear intent of the Marine Mammal Protection Act is to avoid any harm to marine mammals. LFA use could damage a high percentage of certain populations of threatened or endangered species such as the gray whale. Further, LFA use could harm other imperiled sea creatures such as sea turtles, cause anxiety and panic among unaware recreational human divers, and contribute to the further drastic reductions of some fish stocks.
I'm trying to picture "anxiety and panic" among the sea turtle population.
The "roadless" forests in our area had roads. When we were asked to comment on the rushed Clinton proposal, they couldn't even tell us where the "roadless" areas were going to be - yet we were supposed to comment under NEPA.
The Forest Service fighting the Titus, Hancock, Rush and Uncles Fires in my area have had to reopen roads they had decommissioned in order to fight the blazes.
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