Fed judge restores "roadless" rule in national forests

San Francisco federal judge Elizabeth Laporte denied permission to the Bush administration to begin logging and road building in "roadless" national forests. Laporte cited the need to comply with rules set down by the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. About 44 million acres are affected in the lower 48 states, 62,000 acres of which are located in Minnesota.
According to a New York times editorial today, Laporte "largely reinstated the Clinton protections. Her most telling argument was that the Forest Service had flat-out failed to observe the regulatory protocols required of such a major rule change, sidestepped the detailed environmental analysis mandated by law and ignored the potential impacts of the new policy on endangered species."