Appeals Court Blocks Bush Logging Rule

[babylonsister]

Appeals Court Blocks Bush Logging Rule
December 5, 2007 - 9:23pm
By TERENCE CHEA
Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court on Wednesday blocked a Bush administration rule that allowed logging and burning projects in national forests without first analyzing their effects on the environment.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the U.S. Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act when it issued the 2003 rule, which was billed as a way to reduce wildfires.

As part of the "Healthy Forests Initiative," the "hazardous fuels reduction" rule exempted logging projects up to 1,000 acres and prescribed forest burns up to 4,500 acres from environmental review.

The court said the agency's failure to properly analyze the rule caused "irreparable injury" by allowing more than 1.2 million acres of national forest land to be logged and burned each year without studying the ecological impacts.

The three-judge panel ruled that the Forest Service can no longer exempt such projects from environmental analysis until the rule itself can be properly analyzed.

The San Francisco-based appeals court sided with the Sierra Club and Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, which sued the Forest Service and Department of Agriculture in 2004.

:applause::applause:

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[Kolesar]

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