The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling yesterday that reinstated a 2001 ban on road construction in over 50 million acres of national forest.The 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which President Clinton issued before leaving office banned mining, commercial logging, and “other development” on 58.5 million acres of national forests in 38 states and Puerto Rico. According to Matthew Preusch’s reporting for the Oregonian, which can be found on the Oregon Live website by clicking here, the rule was later changed by President Bush to the State Petitions Rule to allow individual states to decide what to do with development in the roadless areas of national forest lands within their borders.
Following the change to the rule, the Associated Press story reports that some Western states and environmental groups brought a lawsuit against the Forest Service. The federal court in San Francisco sided with these plaintiffs yesterday and effectively reinstated the 2001 rule. Click here to read the AP story on the Boston Globe website.
A one year moratorium on road construction in national forest has been issued by the Obama Administration. However, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack approved a timber sale in part of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. It is expected that two miles of new roads need to be constructed for the project.
To read Tuesday, August 4th‘s blog post on what is happening with this issue in Colorado click here.
Posted: 08/06/09
