Judge voids Bush's roadless rules

Gov. Chris Gregoire and three other Western governors scored a major victory Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging the Bush administration's plans for about one-third of the land inside U.S. national forests.

A federal judge in San Francisco ruled that the Bush administration's plan to open as much as 58.5 million acres of the forests to mining and logging was illegal because it failed to abide by two landmark environmental laws: the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

The ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte re-extends protections granted to about 2 million acres in Washington by rules developed during the Clinton administration. The regulations applied to areas of national forests where no roads had been built, but that had not been preserved as official wilderness.

"Today is a great day for Washington; I am very pleased with the decision of the court," Gregoire said in a statement. "Roadless areas contribute to our quality of life and our economy by providing clean water, fish and wildlife habitat along with recreational and business opportunities."

Environmentalists were overjoyed.

"It gets us back to square one. The American people have said they want all these areas protected, and it was very clear that under the Bush administration, that was not going to happen," said Steve Holmer of the Unified Forest Defense Campaign.

Whereas the Clinton rules protected all roadless areas, the Bush administration replaced them with a state-by-state decision process that administration officials said was more likely to mirror wishes of people who live in and near the forests.

"We are carefully considering what the court has said and weighing our options going forward," said Dave Tenny, deputy undersecretary at the Agriculture Department, of which the U.S. Forest Service is a part. "We really have had a very positive and successful experience working with the states. ... We want to continue working together."

Representatives of the timber industry denounced the decision, saying it would leave roadless areas vulnerable to wildfires because firefighters could not get to blazes in remote forests.

"The states were given a level playing field and equal partnership in the decision-making process," said Chris West, vice president of the Portland-based American Forest Industry Council. "This lawsuit and this decision is all about politics."

Whereas the judge ruled that the Bush administration's plan should have been the subject of an environmental impact statement, the administration argued that such reviews could take place on a state-by-state basis.

The decision came in two lawsuits filed separately, one by environmentalists and the other by the states of Washington, Oregon, California and New Mexico.

Environmentalists did not prevail on one key piece of the litigation involving the mammoth Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska, for which the Bush administration had adopted a separate rule.

The Tongass represents about 9.3 million of the 58.5 million acres the Clinton rules protected.

The bulk of the acreage affected in Washington is in the North Cascades, although significant parcels of roadless land also are in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in southern Washington, the Olympic National Forest and the Colville National Forest in northeastern Washington.

In this state, the Forest Service had no immediate plans to allow mining or logging in roadless areas. But environmentalists said that could have changed at any time.

"This issue's been kicking around for years, but this is certainly one of the most significant developments on the roadless area forest protection for many years," said Mike Anderson of The Wilderness Society's Seattle office.

The Clinton-era rules were adopted after about 600 hearings around the country. More than 1.6 million public comments were submitted, with Washington producing the fourth-largest number, including about 20,000 dumped on the floor of a Seattle Center meeting room in 2000.

The Clinton-era rules were struck down by a federal judge in Wyoming in 2004. Based on that, the Bush administration argued that there was no reason to do an environmental analysis of the state-by-state process. But the judge issuing Wednesday's ruling said that that "on-paper-only" argument "strains against the basic rule of law."

"To conclude that a regulation that effects a major change in the way roadless areas in national forests are regulated nationwide ... does not constitute a repeal with potentially significant environmental effects would ignore reality," Laporte's ruling stated.

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, both Democrats, spearheaded resistance in Congress to the Bush roadless policy.

This report includes information from The Associated Press. P-I reporter Robert McClure can be reached at 206-448-8092 or robertmcclure@seattlepi.com.

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