Supreme Court rebuffs ranchers on Mexican Spotted Owl

A welcome surprise-

High court rejects appeal in spotted owl dispute. “The Supreme Court has decided to let stand a Bush administration designation of 8.6 million acres in four Western states as critical habitat for an endangered owl.” Associated Press.

Timber law becomes vast entitlement for some states

Law to help logging communities after the spotted owl-induced logging reductions now pours money into areas where there have never been spotted owls-

Timber law becomes vast entitlement. By Matthew Daly and Shannon Dinninny. Associated Press Writers

Spotted-owl recovery gets another look from Obama administration

Bush policy on the issue called “train wreck,” “unfixable”-

Spotted-owl recovery gets another look from Obama administration. By Warren Cornwall. Seattle Times environment reporter “The Obama administration signaled Tuesday that it wants to scrap a controversial Bush-era plan for spotted-owl recovery, asking a federal district court judge to let them rewrite it, rather than defend it against lawsuits from both environmentalists and the timber industry.”

New Battle of Logging vs. Spotted Owls Looms in West

While Bush and Cheney (it seems especially Cheney) are gearing up for war with Iran, folks in this lame duck Administration are trying gin up the timber wars of the early to mid-1990s.

This should be a settled matter, especially because the whole thing was not really about the spotted owl but the conservation of irreplaceable “old growth” or “ancient” forests. It is a settled matter.

Nevertheless, the BLM wants to greatly increase logging in Oregon old growth forests even as the market slumps.

I’ll bet this has a lot to do with the ascension of Jim Caswell to the post of BLM director.  Before he became an aide to Idaho governor, now Secretary of Interior, Dirk Kempthorne, Caswell was supervisor the Clearwater National Forest, and earlier, the Targhee National Forest in Eastern Idaho.

I remember him well on the Targhee. He was responsible, I believe, for making the transition from the massive salvage logging of bug-killed trees on the Targhee to sustainable logging of the new green trees unnecessarily abrupt, hard on people, divisive.  His ways don’t change.

Story in the New York Times.  New Battle of Logging vs. Spotted Owls Looms in West. By Felicity Barringer.