Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that decades-old environmental rules apply to more forest areas than the federal foresters had assumed. Rob Manning explains.

Following a fire in 2005, the Forest Service pursued salvage logging projects in burned areas that weren’t accessible by road.

Environmental groups sued federal foresters saying they had to follow rules under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, even though the areas in question were not covered by the Clinton-era “roadless rule.”

Ralph Bloemers is the winning attorney for the environmentalists.

Ralph Bloemers: “The ruling is significant because the Forest Service can’t move ahead with damaging logging that targets old-growth trees and roadless areas, without considering the impacts on these irreplaceable resources.”

Bloemers says the ruling effectively affirms that NEPA rules apply not just to the two million acres the Forest Service had inventoried in Oregon, but that it applies to about five million acres.

But the ruling does not extend the even tighter logging restrictions of the Clinton Roadless Rule.