California, New Mexico, Oregon Sue to Bring Back Roadless Rule

SAN FRANCISCO, California, August 30, 2005 (ENS) - The states of California, New Mexico and Oregon today filed a lawsuit against the Bush administration for dismantling restrictions on roadbuilding and logging in nearly 58.5 million acres of the country's remaining backcountry and undeveloped forests.

On May 13, 2005, the Bush administration repealed the so-called Roadless Rule, a wide-ranging regulation issued under President Bill Clinton that prohibits roadbuilding and logging in inventoried roadless areas of the National Forest System.

The Bush administration replaced the Clinton rule with a regulation that requires states to work with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to determine the fate of individual forests rather than managing forests as a whole.

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said today, "I am filing this lawsuit because the Bush administration is putting at risk some of the last, most pristine portions of America's national forests."

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer (Photo courtesy Indymedia.org)

Lockyer was joined in the lawsuit by Attorney General of New Mexico Patricia Madrid and Oregon Governor Ted Kulongsoki, a Democrat. The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Governor Kulongoski said, "This administration made great promises to the states about working as partners when it comes to managing and protecting our national forestlands - however its action has yet to match its rhetoric."

"The 2005 rule turns the clock back on years of work, including millions of public comment and millions of taxpayers' dollars, and the end result is greater uncertainty about the protection of our special roadless areas - not greater security," said the governor.

Lockyer, a Democrat in the Republican administration of Governor Arnold Swarzenegger, said the three Western states joined forces to challenge the repeal because they have a common interest in protecting pristine national forest lands, declining fish runs dependent on unaltered streams, and the quality and quantity of drinking water. Water flowing from national forest lands provides one-third of the West's fresh water.

New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid (Photo courtesy Office of the Attorney General)

"The federal government acknowledges that roadbuilding and timber harvest will result in decreased water quality, increased sediment and pollutants, yet they refuse to protect our state's few remaining pristine areas."

States have 18 months from the repeal date - May 13, 2005 - to petition the federal government to open the lands to roads and development or to keep them protected.

States have expressed concern over the administrative burdens of participating in the petition process, and voiced uncertainty about whether the USFS will grant petitions requesting high levels of protection for roadless areas.

The lawsuit is part one of Governor Kulongoski's three part plan to ensure Oregon’s roadless areas are protected.

Governor Ted Kulongoski of Oregon (Photo courtesy Office of the Governor)

In addition, the governor is entering into a Memorandum of Agreement as a "cooperating agency" with the U.S. Forest Service, which, working through the Oregon Department of Forestry, will establish Oregon as a principal participant in the development of updated management plans for national forests in Oregon.

Kulongoski said, "When the 2005 Rule was announced, I made it clear that the federal government’s actions placed an unfair and unnecessary burden on states that would amount to a price tag of millions of dollars and result in piecemeal management of federal forest land."

Some of the finest remaining old growth stands in the Pacific Northwest are in Southern Oregon’s Umpqua National Forest. (Photo courtesy National Forest Protection Alliance (NFPA))

During its public comment period, Clinton's proposed Roadless Rule generated the largest public response in U.S. Forest Service history, with over 90 percent of comments supportive of the ban on roadbuilding in specified, inventoried areas of national forests that were then roadless.

The Bush administration's Roadless Repeal generated an even greater volume of comment, most of it critical.

The lawsuit alleges that in rescinding the road ban and replacing it with a state-by-state petition process, the USFS violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to conduct a full environmental impact analysis.

Under the guise of forest health, say environmentalists, "salvage sales" have allowed logging in lightly burned old growth stands. These sales are supposed to protect against fire, but the fires in this area of the Umpqua National Forest have burned hottest in previously logged places, not in virgin forest. (Photo courtesy NFPA)

Additionally, according to the complaint, the Forest Service improperly relied on earlier environmental documents produced to support the original Roadless Rule. Those documents do not justify the policy change, the complaint alleges.

The complaint states that undeveloped lands in national forests not only are critical to a healthy California ecosystem, but are of "enormous national importance."

California has 4.4 million acres of national forest lands that would be protected under President Clinton's rule, more than 1.1 million acres of which lie in the Sierra Nevada.

In Northern California, roadless areas are threatened by timber roadbuilding; in Southern California, they often are threatened by expansion of off-road vehicle road networks.

The complaint alleges that California's roadless areas are vital to the survival and recovery of numerous rare and endangered species, including the recently reintroduced California condor.

The U.S. Forest Service has 60 days to respond to the lawsuit.