Bush Dealt Setback On Opening Forests to logging and mining ! [View All]

[nam78_two]

America's National forests a little safer (for now!)
Good that their are enough donations to some of those tireless environmental groups out there who have been fighting stuff like for 6 years now.

A round of applause for the groups that were working on this :applause:
The Wilderness Society, Defenders of wildlife, The Sierra Club, NPCA, National Wildlife Federation etc.
:yourock:

Also, a huge thanks to all those of you who work for <$10,000/year to work on issues that you are so passionate about- I have known a lot of you working in areas ranging from minimum wage and universal healthcare to environmental protection, animal welfare etc., most of you work for a pittance for what you believe is important. I am not one of you but I am deeply grateful for what you do :grouphug:.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/20/AR2006092001660.html?nav=hcmodule


SEATTLE, Sept. 20 -- Ruling against the Bush administration's efforts to open national forests for logging and mining, a federal judge in California on Wednesday set aside a U.S. Forest Service rule that allows governors to decide which land in national forests is suited for development.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte largely reinstated one of the most sweeping, emotionally fraught and legally contentious land-protection measures in decades: the Clinton-era "roadless rule," which put nearly a third of the national forests -- roughly 60 million acres -- off-limits to most development.


Administration officials "don't agree with the decision of the court" in California and "are considering our options" in appealing, said Dave Tenny, the deputy undersecretary of agriculture responsible for Forest Service policy.


The court ruling did not stop Idaho Gov. James E. Risch (R) from presenting a petition on Wednesday to open up the majority of the state's 9.3 million acres of roadless areas to commercial development. Colorado and Utah may soon do likewise.

"Idaho is moving forward," said Brad Hoaglun, a spokesman for Risch. "It sounds like there will be another court case."

Laporte's order chastised the Bush administration for having changed the 2001 roadless rule without explaining why it was doing so, for failing to cite "any new evidence" for altering land protections that had been years in the making and for ignoring the consequences of its new policy on endangered species.