Forest Service attempts to remove ruling
GRANTS PASS, Ore. – The U.S. Forest Service has asked a federal judge to lift a ruling that the agency has used to suspend permits for nearly 1,500 activities in national forests, including Inland Northwest fuels-thinning projects and trail work.
But conservationists who won the ruling countered that the Forest Service is going far beyond what the law requires to create public outrage that will help conservatives in Congress gut environmental laws.
“We are hoping and praying somebody comes to their senses,” said Karl Kapuscinski, CEO of Mountain High Resort outside Los Angeles, which could lose millions of dollars if the transfer to new owners of the permit to operate on the Angeles National Forest is held up, delaying the opening of ski season. “It’s almost comical, but it’s not.”
In support of a motion to stay the ruling by U.S. District Judge James K. Singleton for the Eastern District of California, Forest Service Associate Deputy Chief Gloria Manning wrote that the agency has identified 1,436 projects or activities on national forests throughout the country where permits were suspended due to the ruling.
They include 115 permits for guided hunting, fishing, river trips and horseback rides, 14 projects on ski areas, 98 permits for public utilities and communications sites, and National Guard training in Hoosier National Forest in Indiana. They also include thinning and burning to reduce wildfire danger on 20,000 acres nationwide, and 169 projects involving trail and campground maintenance.
Last month, the Forest Service said it had suspended the permit for cutting an 80-foot-tall Engelmann spruce from the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico to serve as “The People’s Holiday Tree” on the grounds of the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
“It’s clear to me that the Bush administration is trying to manufacture a political crisis by overextending implementation of this ruling,” said Sean Cosgrove, national forest policy specialist for the Sierra Club, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “I think they would like to create a crisis so they could make legislative attempts to basically change the National Environmental Policy Act or other conservation laws.”
The actions stem from Singleton’s July 2 ruling, which found that the Forest Service was improperly approving projects without public comment or appeals under a process known as categorical exclusions. The judge wrote that the ruling should not apply to minor projects, such as cutting the lawn at ranger stations, but was intended to apply to land management decisions.
In arguing for the stay, U.S. Justice Department lawyers wrote to the court that that they were likely to prevail on appeal with arguments that the environmental groups lacked proper legal standing to bring the case and the issue was not ripe for judicial review.
In opposing the stay, Matt Kenna, attorney for the Western Environmental law Center in Durango, Colo., wrote the court that he has repeatedly told the Forest Service that minor activities such as outfitter permits are not affected by the ruling, and offered to work out a solution, but the Forest Service never responded to his calls or letters.