War on Trees

Judge Phyllis Hamilton dealt a blow to George Bush's less publicized War On Trees.

Federal Judge Strikes Down Forest Management Rules :
A federal judge in California on Friday overturned the Bush administration’s revised rules for management of the country’s 155 national forests, saying that the federal Forest Service violated the basic laws ensuring that forest ecosystems have environmental safeguards.

The rules, issued in early 2005, cut back on requirements for environmental reviews and safeguards for wildlife, and limited public participation in the development of management plans for individual forests.

Instead, they broadened the power of forest managers to decide whether mines, logging operations, cellphone towers or other development would be appropriate uses of forest land.

In the ruling Friday, Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton of Federal District Court in San Francisco said the Forest Service had violated several laws when it changed the rules forest managers must follow when making decisions, and did so without consulting the public or considering environmental impact.

The judge issued an injunction forbidding the service from using the rules to make decisions about the national forests and grasslands, which cover 8 percent of the country.

The Bush-ites tried to use their favorite trick: “facts are what we say they are, just trust us”. Ummm, no.

Judge Hamilton said she could not determine if the rules were environmentally benign, as the Forest Service argued, or if endangered species would be unaffected, because no studies had been done.

“The agency was required to undertake some type of consultation, informal or otherwise, prior to making a conclusive determination that there would be no effect,” she wrote.

She sent the management plans back to the Agriculture Department, the parent agency of the Forest Service, to be redone, this time in consultation with the public and with the federal agencies that protect wildlife.

Tim Preso, a lawyer who argued the case for the environmental group Earthjustice, said Friday, “Basically, the importance of this decision is that the Bush administration had been trying to take all mandatory environmental protections out of forest planning process and this decision puts them back in.”

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