ROADLESS AND RULE-LESS?

Roadless Rule Takes Another U-Turn

By David Frey, 8-23-08

	Photo by Emily Haas

The rule protecting millions of roadless acres on public lands across the West and around the country has followed a long and winding road since the Clinton administration put it in place.

Now it has taken another U-turn, and it leaves 58.5 million acres, mostly in the West, in limbo.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer of Wyoming issued a permanent injunction against the roadless rule, saying it violates the National Environmental Policy Act and the Wilderness Act. It is the second swipe Brimmer has taken against the rule, which has been on again, off again since it went into effect in January 2001.

This time, Brimmer’s ruling came with pointed words both for President Clinton and the San Francisco judge who reinstated the rule after Brimmer struck it down the first time.

“The Forest Service, in an attempt to bolster an outgoing President’s environmental legacy, rammed through an environmental agenda that itself violates the country’s well-established environmental laws,” Brimmer wrote.

Environmentalists are appealing the decision. They’re also arguing that Brimmer’s ruling doesn’t overrule the earlier one that put it back in place, and that Brimmer’s decision should only affect Wyoming forests. They hope his tough language will weaken his decision when a federal appeals court looks at it.

“He’s definitely got an ax to grind,” says Mike Anderson, attorney for The Wilderness Society, one of the groups appealing the decision. “He’s made some political accusations. That does not play well with other judges. He kind of threw some extra red paint on his decision in terms of making it vulnerable to reversal.”

Forest Service officials say they’re looking into how to proceed in the meantime. Environmentalists worry before the issue is decided, roadless lands will be opened up to new roads, logging and gas leases.

“It just throws it up in the air,” says Sloan Shoemaker, executive director of Wilderness Workshop, which advocates for protection on Colorado’s White River National Forest. It contains some 700,000 of the state’s 4.4 million roadless acres but is seeing increasing drilling pressure for natural gas, and some of the richest pockets are believed to lie in roadless areas.

The Clinton rule forbids development on roadless lands in 38 states and Puerto Rico. Brimmer first overturned the rule in 2003, in response to a lawsuit filed by Wyoming challenging it. Three years later, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte, of San Francisco reinstated it, prompting Wyoming to renew its complaint. On Aug. 12, Brimmer overturned it again.

In the meantime, the Bush administration replaced the rule in May 2005 with a process that required governors to petition the federal government to protect lands in their states. Many states complied, but most dropped their petitions after the Clinton rule was reinstated. Idaho and Colorado went forward with their plans, though. Despite Brimmer’s latest ruling, environmentalists are asking those states to drop their petitions.

“When you have an opportunity to protect these roadless areas that are at risk, you ought to take it,” says Eddie Kochman, a Colorado hunter and angler. Coachman sat on the Colorado task force that helped draft the state’s petition, but he’s among a chorus of environmentalists who think a better federal law will provide more protection that a state rule.

“Many a sportsman in Colorado feels that wild land in Colorado is being sold by the federal government to the highest bidder,” Kochman says.

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