Bush Administration tries again with new Forest Service regulations

The Administration’s earlier attempt to revise the rules for national forest planning were quickly shot down by a federal court because they made the forest plans no longer subject to serious public comment and attempted to avoid NEPA for what had been the guiding document as to how a national forest would be managed for about a ten year period.

But these things were hardly the only things wrong with the new planning rule. Opponents argued in court that both the intent and the specifics of the guiding law, the National Forest Management Act of 1976, were being changed. The judge didn’t even bother to get that far before he told the Administration to start over, so they have.

Now they propose basically the same rules, but with public involvement and an environmental impact statement restored.

This will probably be struck down in court again, just like their proposed new grazing rules for BLM lands were.

The fundamental problem with this Administration is they don’t like public lands, they don’t like the public land laws, and they don’t think they have to obey any law they don’t like whether it has to do with public lands, the military, or anything else.

Bush and Cheney should have been impeached, removed from office, and made subject to penalties for the crimes they may have committed (after appropriate due process of law). They have violated their oath of office and committed high crimes and misdemeanors, IMO.

Jan. 2009, when they are gone, seems like forever away.

• Critics assail revised forest rules. By Noelle Straub. Casper Star-Tribune Washington bureau.
• Forest Service Proposes New Forest Rules. By Matthew Daily. The Associated Press.

In the last line of this story, Matthew Daily wrote, “A Forest Service spokeswoman said the new plan would take effect after 60 days and was not subject to judicial review.” Yes, I suppose the Administration believes they are no longer subject to the courts as well as to statutory law.

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Some photos of the Idaho fires near Warm Lake (South Fork Salmon River headwaters area)

These were sent to me by a local resident. The photographer told me these are typical of “what I saw in that area and it is what burned on Monday.”

Feds, Conservationists Offer Reward for Oregon Wolf Killer

PORTLAND, Oregon, August 17, 2007 (ENS) - Two conservation groups have sweetened the pot for anyone who has information about the illegal shooting of a female endangered gray wolf in eastern Oregon last October.

Oregon Wild and the Center for Biological Diversity Thursday offered a $4,000 reward to anyone who can provide information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators of the crime.

The fund is in addition to $5,000 that has been offered as a reward by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The animal was found dead in early October between Battle Mountain and Whittaker Flats along Oregon Highway 395 near Ukiah, Oregon.

Tests, recently completed at the agency’s national forensics laboratory in Ashland, Oregon, confirmed that it was a wolf and that it was killed by a bullet from a high velocity rifle.

Tests on the contents of the wolf’s stomach show that it had not been feeding on livestock.