Environmentalists celebrated in
September when U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte reinstated
President Clinton’s 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
Hailed as a clear victory against the Bush administration’s
attempts to undermine the rule, the decision appeared to protect
some 50 million acres of national forest land in the Lower 48
states.
But by the end of the week, the extent of the
victory was less clear: Salvage logging continues in roadless
forests; gas leases were spared from the shredder; the Bush
administration is looking for ways to get around the new ruling;
and new legal challenges to the Clinton rule have popped up in
courts across the West.
Since the day Clinton handed down
the rule as he left office in January 2001, it has been the focus
of a legal and political tug-of-war. The incoming Bush
administration delayed its implementation and vowed to amend it. In
2003, a Wyoming district court issued a nationwide permanent
injunction against it. Then, last year, the Bush administration
implemented its own rule allowing state governors to individually
petition for roadless protection in their respective states.
Then came last month’s surprise: Laporte ruled that
by rescinding the Clinton rule, the Bush administration violated
the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species
Act. Laporte’s ruling brought back Clinton’s ban on
road building and timber sales on designated roadless acreage. Two
days after the ruling, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth ordered
forest managers to “not approve any further management activities
in inventoried roadless areas that would be prohibited by the 2001
Roadless Rule.”
Bosworth’s order, however,
doesn’t mention the projects — at least 14 of them,
from energy development to logging — that have gone forward
in roadless areas since 2001. Environmentalists say those projects
not only violated the Clinton rule, but also potentially
contradicted states’ wishes before they had a chance to weigh
in on roadless protections.
If there’s a poster
child for such a project, it’s the Mike’s Gulch salvage
timber sale in Oregon’s Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.
Two years ago, the Forest Service outraged environmentalists by
awarding salvage logging contracts within roadless areas burned by
the 2002 Biscuit fire. Laporte’s decision, it seemed, would
halt those projects.
But in a move that confounded
environmentalists, Judge Laporte refused to issue an injunction.
Matt Fisher of the Oregon Natural Resources Council thinks the
reinstated rule should be applied retroactively to projects like
Mike’s Gulch, which he believes violated the original rule.
Forest Service spokeswoman Patty Burel argues the project complied
with all existing regulations, hinting it would have been legal
under the Clinton rule. “Anyway, at this point, we’re only
using helicopters to remove the downed trees,” says Burel. “Once
we’re done with these two projects, we’re done.”
Several projects in the White River National Forest of
western Colorado are in limbo, including recent gas leases and the
controversial Bull Mountain pipeline project, slated to cross an
eight-mile stretch of roadless area. The Wilderness
Workshop’s Sloan Shoemaker believes these projects violate
the 2001 rule, but says the Forest Service refuses to explain how
the ruling will affect them. “They’re in disarray, and I
think (Agriculture Department Undersecretary) Mark Rey is trying to
see how far he can push the envelope,” says Shoemaker.
Wiggle room
Even under the Clinton rule, Rey
may not have to push the envelope very far to facilitate
development in roadless areas. The Clinton rule left the door open
to logging in the name of forest health. Selling new oil and gas
leases was not prohibited, as long as no new roads were built to
develop them, and new roads can be built to leases that were in
place prior to 2001.
Even with the wiggle room built into
the Clinton rule, Bush officials are keen to keep the state
petition process alive, in one form or another. While the
administration considers its options, Undersecretary Rey has begun
touting the Administrative Procedures Act — which allows any
individual to petition for regulatory change — as another
option for states that hope to have a say in the way their forests
are managed.
Most Western states were well on their way
to meeting the original November petition deadline when Laporte
announced her decision. Instead of abandoning their petitions, most
have elected to carry on. Whether it’s under the
Administrative Procedures Act, or Bush’s state petition rule
is reinstated on a future appeal, chances are good the
states’ recommendations will eventually make it to Washington
for consideration.
And those recommendations are likely
to be as diverse as the states themselves. California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger, R, and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, D, have
already requested that 100 percent of their states’ roadless
forests be protected. Oregon and Washington are likely to follow
suit, having joined California and New Mexico to successfully
challenge the state petition plan in the first place.
From the beginning, Alaska and Wyoming refused to participate in
the petition process, calling it “a paper-pushing exercise” that
gave state governors no authority over local issues. Instead,
they’ve chosen to hammer out management policies, forest by
forest, under the existing Forest Service planning process.
Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, R, established a bipartisan
task force to make recommendations concerning his state’s 4.1
million roadless acres. With a few exceptions, its suggestions are
remarkably similar to the Clinton rule. Idaho Gov. Jim Risch, R,
used a similar method to reach very different results. If the feds
accept his proposal, more than half of his state’s roadless
forests will be labeled as “backcountry” open to multiple-use
management, including logging and temporary road building.
And finally, Montana, Utah, and Arizona are drafting
their roadless petitions, hoping to submit them to the Department
of Agriculture within the month. While the states continue to hedge
their bets and environmentalists demand explanations, it seems that
Laporte’s decision has done more to confuse the issue of
forest management than anything else. But there is one thing
everyone — conservationists, rangers, loggers, and agency
officials alike — can agree on: Clinton’s roadless rule
will be back in the courtroom soon.
The author
is an HCN intern.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Clinton-era roadless rule is back… for now.
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