Free Republic

The federal judge who overturned the Bush administration’s Roadless Rule declared Wednesday that energy companies can’t set up their drill rigs on any undeveloped oil and gas lease issued since 2001 within a roadless area. U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. LaPorte ruled in September that President Bill Clinton’s 2001 Roadless Rule be reinstated, protecting 4.4 million acres of roadless areas in Colorado national forests and more than 58 million acres nationwide. Her ruling Wednesday prevents the U.S. Forest Service from approving or allowing any surface disturbance of a mineral lease issued after Jan. 12, 2001, on which drilling or development...

SAN FRANCISCO A federal judge on Wednesday overturned the Bush administration's rules on road construction in untouched areas of national forests and reinstated a Clinton-era ban on new roads in nearly a third of federal forests. U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte sided with states and environmentalists who sued the U.S. Forest Service after it reversed Clinton's "Roadless Rule" that prohibited logging, mining and other development on 58.5 million acres of forest land in 38 states and Puerto Rico. In May 2005, the Bush administration replaced the Clinton rule with a voluntary state-by-state petition process that the plaintiffs claimed violated federal...