FORESTS: Judge Sends Ore. Timber Plans Back to Interior

Lawrence Hurley, E&E reporter

A federal judge ruled today that the Interior Department failed to follow the correct legal procedures in withdrawing a George W. Bush administration plan to increase the timber harvest in western Oregon.

In December 2008, at the tail end of the Bush administration, Interior approved a plan for six Bureau of Land Management districts, covering 2.5 million acres of land (Greenwire, Jan. 5, 2009).

Seven months later, the Obama administration sought to withdraw the plan, saying BLM had failed to conduct necessary consultation under the Endangered Species Act.

Timber companies quickly sought legal review of that decision (E&ENews PM, Sept. 8, 2009).

In today's ruling, U.S. District Judge John Bates of the District of Columbia agreed that the Obama administration had cut corners.

Bates wrote that the administration violated the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which, among other things, requires the government to seek public comment before updating land management plans.

Even if the government's claim that the Bush administration had failed to consult on endangered species issues was correct, that did not mean it could then ignore the FLPMA requirements, Bates added.

It is not clear whether Bates' decision means that the Bush administration plan now goes into effect or whether the land in question will, as it was originally, be subject to the Northwest Forest Plan that was set up in 1994 to protect the habitat of the northern spotted owl.

"What it means in practice is less than clear," said Susan Jane Brown, an attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center, who represented conservation groups that intervened on the side of the government.

Click here to read the opinion.