News Service October 23, 2001

Environmentalists Argue to Lift Roadless Rule Block
INJUNCTION: U.S. district judge issued injunction in May.

By Mia Penta
The Associated Press

(Published: October 16, 2001)

Seattle -- Environmentalists on Monday asked a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel to lift an injunction against a rule that would have restricted logging and road building on a third of national forest lands.

On the other side, lawyers for the state of Idaho, the Kootenai tribe, snowmobilers and livestock companies argued for the injunction, saying the ban would make forests vulnerable to disease, bugs and wildfire and limit use by the tribe.

A ruling could take weeks or months, lawyers for both sides said.

The roadless rule, enacted by President Clinton in his final two weeks in office, was blocked in May by U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge in Boise, Idaho.

Lodge issued a preliminary injunction in response to Idaho's lawsuit challenging the policy. He called the rule a "Band-Aid approach" that would do irreparable harm.

The Bush administration, which said there had not been enough public comment on the issue, declined to appeal Lodge's decision. Nobody from the Department of Justice participated Monday.

Most roadless federal forests are in the West, including Alaska's Tongass and Chugach national forests. Clinton's order would have stopped all new road construction in the Chugach and all road construction in the Tongass, except for developments involving timber sales that were already proposed.

Members of the three-judge panel expressed concerns that the environmental groups did not have the power to appeal because the government had chosen not to, and the attorneys were grilled to find cases that could support their stance.

Douglas Honnold, who represented the Idaho Conservation League, said other cases have supported ways "to allow all parties an opportunity to be heard."

Environmentalists said it would be impossible to predict the ruling, but they were obviously a little discouraged.

"I don't think anyone can sit through that and not have some sense it was a challenge to raise the issues we thought were important," Honnold said later.

The roadless rule would have protected 58.5 million acres of federal forests from logging and road construction, except in rare circumstances. Much of the land that would have been protected is in the West, although the national forests stretch from Alaska's Tongass National Forest to Florida's Apalachicola National Forest.

Environmentalists have said the policy came after more than three years of study, 600 public hearings and 1.6 million individual comments.

Judge Ronald Gould said evidence showed that the rule was rushed through. But he noted that perhaps the Bush administration had chosen not to appeal the injunction rather than go through rule making.

The judges asked the injunction supporters what would happen if it were lifted, since the administration has promised to change the policy.

Both sides indicated that whatever the outcome, the fight will continue.