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New U.S. planning rule unlikely to alter management debate
BY DAN BERMAN, GREENWIRE, 08/17/07
The Forest Service's decision to slightly revise its national planning rule in response to a federal judge's ruling is not expected to alter the battle lines in the fight over how national forests should be managed.
Yesterday, the agency officially unveiled its new draft rule that will govern how management plans are developed for 193 million acres of national forest. Like the 2005 version, the rule focuses attention and environmental review at the project level, rather than at the planning level.
"Our concerns about the rule will not be alleviated at all," said Marc Fink, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity who challenged the 2005 rule. "They're not including the substantive standards and guidelines required by the National Forest Management Act."
The planning rule determines how the 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands develop their individual forest plans, documents that govern activities from timber harvests to recreation and protecting endangered plants and animals. Environmentalists say forest plans developed under the 2005 rule would make it more difficult to challenge individual projects, because the new plans have no enforceable standards such as specific limits on logging or watershed protections.
The revised rule responds to the March ruling by U.S. Judge Phyllis Hamilton, who sided with environmentalists and the state of California and enjoined the Bush administration's 2005 rule, saying the Forest Service removed environmental protections without providing for proper public comment or considering the effect on endangered species (E&ENews PM, March 30).
Hamilton ruled on procedural grounds and did not address the substance of the 2005 rule.
"It is essentially the same as the enjoined rule," David Dillard, USFS director for ecosystem management coordination, told reporters yesterday. "The court found nothing wrong with the rule but found more public involvement was necessary."
Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council, praised the administration for addressing the procedural problems with the planning rule rather than yielding to complaints from environmental groups. West said the proposed rule properly attempts to avoid large-scale planning exercises that still require site-specific analysis.
"The real action on the ground where decisions are made on exclusion of motorized vehicles or a cutting of a tree or building of a bridge or closing of the road," West said. "That's the real decision where the agency should be focusing its time and effort evaluating, and not at some theoretical landscape-level where in-depth analysis is hard to do."
Moving ahead
As part of the new rule, the Forest Service will issue a draft EIS with the proposed rule and four alternatives: the Clinton-era planning rule that was challenged by the timber industry and environmental groups, the Reagan-era planning rule, a version of the 2005 rule without requirements for an environmental management system (EMS), and a version of the 2005 rule.
The plaintiffs will be waiting to review the final environmental impact statement (EIS) and the extent of consultation between the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service on endangered species issues, Fink said.
Forest Service officials have previously said they will appeal aspects of Hamilton's ruling they cannot remedy via a new rulemaking with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but Dillard yesterday said no decision to appeal has been made. The federal government has until early next month to file a notice of appeal.
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