On Sept. 19, U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte
reinstated protection for some 50 million acres of roadless
national forest land. (Separate rules govern the roughly 9 million
roadless acres of Alaska’s Tongass.) Laporte ruled that the
Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act and
the Endangered Species Act when, in 2005, it repealed President
Clinton’s 2001 “roadless rule” and required states to
petition for roadless protection. The Forest Service has roughly
three months to decide whether to appeal the ruling to the 9th
Circuit Court. In the meantime, inventoried roadless areas must be
protected under the terms of Clinton’s original roadless
rule. The ruling comes just weeks before the Bush
administration’s deadline for states to petition the
government for protection.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Roadless returns!.
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