Conservation Groups Sue U.S. Forest Service

Fourteen conservation groups have sued the U.S. Forest Service to prevent it from instituting rules a previous court decision has declared illegal, according to news from the Center for Biological Diversity.

The groups want the Forest Service to follow the regulations it adopted in 1982 to comply with the National Forest Management Act. Those rules, which spell out required levels of protection for fish, wildlife and water quality in national forests, were weakened by Forest Service revisions in 2000 and 2005, the suing organizations argue.

"The Forest Service keeps digging itself further into a hole," said Marc Fink, attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the organizations that filed the lawsuit. "If the agency wants to plan and implement projects on national forests, it must do so legally, under the 1982 regulations. While it may not like it, even the Bush administration must abide by the law."

The Forest Service uses rules based on the National Forest Management Act to develop regional forest plans and pave the way for projects such as timber sales and road construction at individual forest sites. After nearly two decades of following the regulations it established in 1982, the agency revised those rules in 2000. However, a U.S. appellate court declared those revisions were developed in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.

The Forest Service revised its rules again in 2005. But a federal court recently ruled that the agency's latest regulations violated three laws: the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. Upon issuing its ruling, the court also put in place an injunction that prevented the Forest Service from following the 2005 revisions.

Following that ruling, the Forest Service ordered all its regions to once again follow the rules adopted in 2000, even though those had also previously been declared illegal. The lawsuit filed this week seeks to force the agency to revert to its 1982 regulations.

"The Forest Service refuses to reinstate the only rules that were adopted legally, and that protect our forests," said Pete Frost, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center, which is representing the plaintiffs along with lawyers from the Center for Biological Diversity.

Organizations participating in the lawsuit include the Cascadia Wildlands Project, the Center for Biological Diversity, Citizens for Better Forestry, the Environmental Protection Information Center, Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, Friends of the Clearwater, the Gifford Pinchot Task Force, the Idaho Sporting Congress, the Kettle Range Conservation Group, the Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center, the Lands Council, the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project, the Utah Environmental Congress and the Wild West Institute.

Center for Biological Diversity, "Conservationists Seek to Block Forest Service's Resurrection of Illegal Regulations." URL: (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/press/nfma-07-26-2007.html)