Roadless Rule Being Litigated . . . Again

Briefs were filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit yesterday in favor of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule (Roadless Rule), which bans new roads in national forests. Again.

The rule, which was issued in 2001 at the end of the Clinton Administration, has been the subject of nearly endless litigation ever since. In separate proceedings in the Ninth Circuit, environmentalists sued to overturn a Bush Administration reversal of the rule, via the so-called State Petitions Rule, which sought to give states authority over whether National Forests in their own states should remain roadless. Last August, in California v. USDA, the Ninth Circuit ruled that (1) it was unreasonable for the Forest Service to use a categorical exemption to exclude the State Petitions Rule from NEPA review, (2) it was arbitrary and capricious for it to find no significant impact under the ESA, and (3) the district court had been correct to reinstate the Roadless Rule. (As that case was argued prior to the end of the Bush Administration, DOJ supported the State Petitions Rule and opposed the reinstatement of the Roadless Rule.)

Meanwhile, the state of Wyoming challenged the Roadless Rule in federal district court in Wyoming--and won. In a 2008 decision, the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming ruled (for the second time) that the Roadless Rule violated NEPA as well as the Wilderness Act. This time, the Obama DOJ joined environmentalists and is arguing that the district court's decision should be overturned.

A brief AP article on the filing can be read here. And a colorful High Country News article on the judge in Wyoming who keeps overturning the Roadless Rule, as well as the endless litigation it has been subjected to, can be read here.