Northwest Forest Plan Challenges Dismissed

Thu., May 23, 1996

Associated Press

A federal judge here dismissed the last of the timber industry’s legal challenges to President Clinton’s Northwest forest plan Wednesday, saying the complaints already had been rejected by federal judges in the West.

But industry officials said they were considering appealing the dismissal. The lawsuits accuse the administration of illegally adopting a plan reducing logging on national forests in the Northwest to about one-fourth the level of the 1980s.

“We are very pleased the last challenge to the president’s forest plan has been resolved in favor of the government,” said Peter Coppelman, deputy assistant attorney general for environment and natural resources.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson on Wednesday dismissed a trio of suits filed by the Northwest Forest Resource Council of Portland and others.

Jackson earlier ruled in favor of the industry group, saying the administration violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act by holding secret meetings in formulating the Clinton plan, known as “Option 9.”

Jackson had deferred taking any action on that ruling, rejecting the industry’s request to block implementation of the plan. He said the matter was more appropriately addressed in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Northern California, Oregon and Washington.

U.S. District Judge William Dwyer of Seattle upheld the plan in December 1994 and last month the 9th Circuit affirmed his ruling, 3-0.

Clinton unveiled his forest strategy in 1994, barring logging across millions of acres in an effort to protect fish and wildlife habitat.

He also vowed to cut about 1 billion board feet of timber annually on the lands that once produced more than 4 billion board feet a year.

The action responded to earlier rulings by Dwyer and others who found the Bush administration’s forest plans to be in violation of U.S. environmental laws.

Chris West, vice president of the Northwest Forestry Association in Portland, another plaintiff, said they were considering their options, including appealing Jackson’s ruling to the U.S. Appeals Court in Washington D.C. or appealing the 9th Circuit ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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