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WASHINGTON, March 30 — A federal judge in California on Friday overturned the Bush administration’s revised rules for management of the country’s 155 national forests, saying that the federal Forest Service violated the basic laws ensuring that forest ecosystems have environmental safeguards.
Mark Rey, who oversees the Forest Service, said there had been no decision on whether to appeal.
The rules, issued in early 2005, cut back on requirements for environmental reviews and safeguards for wildlife, and limited public participation in the development of management plans for individual forests.
Instead, they broadened the power of forest managers to decide whether mines, logging operations, cellphone towers or other development would be appropriate uses of forest land.
In the ruling Friday, Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton of Federal District Court in San Francisco said the Forest Service had violated several laws when it changed the rules forest managers must follow when making decisions, and did so without consulting the public or considering environmental impact.
The judge issued an injunction forbidding the service from using the rules to make decisions about the national forests and grasslands, which cover 8 percent of the country.
Judge Hamilton said she could not determine if the rules were environmentally benign, as the Forest Service argued, or if endangered species would be unaffected, because no studies had been done.
“The agency was required to undertake some type of consultation, informal or otherwise, prior to making a conclusive determination that there would be no effect,” she wrote.
She sent the management plans back to the Agriculture Department, the parent agency of the Forest Service, to be redone, this time in consultation with the public and with the federal agencies that protect wildlife.
Tim Preso, a lawyer who argued the case for the environmental group Earthjustice, said Friday, “Basically, the importance of this decision is that the Bush administration had been trying to take all mandatory environmental protections out of forest planning process and this decision puts them back in.”
One of the crucial questions in the case was whether, simply by setting rules for its actions, a federal agency was triggering the same requirements for study and consultation that are usually set in motion by specific actions, like authorizing a timber harvest.
The environmental groups bringing the lawsuit, including Earthjustice, the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife, argued that these management rules should be seen as an action.
Judge Hamilton agreed, saying that “the trigger” for the consultations that the Bush administration failed to make was not that the rule changes were “likely to have adverse effects, but simply that the rule may affect listed species or critical habitat.”
Among the changes made in the 2005 regulations was the elimination of a requirement that forest managers ensure that no fish or wildlife species with habitat in their forest become threatened or endangered.
Mark Rey, the under secretary of agriculture who oversees the Forest Service, said his agency was “carefully reviewing the decision” and had not decided whether to appeal. He said the findings in recent court rulings on forest plans in New Mexico and Alabama appeared to contradict Judge Hamilton’s view.
Chris West of the American Forest Resource Council, a group based in Portland, Ore., that represents timber interests, said: “The court order is requiring analysis when not a grain of sand or a single hair on a critter is being moved. And we are going to spend millions of dollars doing it.”
“It’s bureaucracy for bureaucracy’s sake,” Mr. West said.
Just one management plan has been completed under the new rules, the one for the twin Comanche and Cimarron National Grasslands in Colorado and Kansas. At least half a dozen others are well on their way to completion. Their status is questionable given Judge Hamilton’s ruling.
Mark Rey, who oversees the Forest Service, said there had been no decision on whether to appeal.
The rules, issued in early 2005, cut back on requirements for environmental reviews and safeguards for wildlife, and limited public participation in the development of management plans for individual forests.
Instead, they broadened the power of forest managers to decide whether mines, logging operations, cellphone towers or other development would be appropriate uses of forest land.
In the ruling Friday, Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton of Federal District Court in San Francisco said the Forest Service had violated several laws when it changed the rules forest managers must follow when making decisions, and did so without consulting the public or considering environmental impact.
The judge issued an injunction forbidding the service from using the rules to make decisions about the national forests and grasslands, which cover 8 percent of the country.
Judge Hamilton said she could not determine if the rules were environmentally benign, as the Forest Service argued, or if endangered species would be unaffected, because no studies had been done.
“The agency was required to undertake some type of consultation, informal or otherwise, prior to making a conclusive determination that there would be no effect,” she wrote.
She sent the management plans back to the Agriculture Department, the parent agency of the Forest Service, to be redone, this time in consultation with the public and with the federal agencies that protect wildlife.
Tim Preso, a lawyer who argued the case for the environmental group Earthjustice, said Friday, “Basically, the importance of this decision is that the Bush administration had been trying to take all mandatory environmental protections out of forest planning process and this decision puts them back in.”
One of the crucial questions in the case was whether, simply by setting rules for its actions, a federal agency was triggering the same requirements for study and consultation that are usually set in motion by specific actions, like authorizing a timber harvest.
The environmental groups bringing the lawsuit, including Earthjustice, the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife, argued that these management rules should be seen as an action.
Judge Hamilton agreed, saying that “the trigger” for the consultations that the Bush administration failed to make was not that the rule changes were “likely to have adverse effects, but simply that the rule may affect listed species or critical habitat.”
Among the changes made in the 2005 regulations was the elimination of a requirement that forest managers ensure that no fish or wildlife species with habitat in their forest become threatened or endangered.
Mark Rey, the under secretary of agriculture who oversees the Forest Service, said his agency was “carefully reviewing the decision” and had not decided whether to appeal. He said the findings in recent court rulings on forest plans in New Mexico and Alabama appeared to contradict Judge Hamilton’s view.
Chris West of the American Forest Resource Council, a group based in Portland, Ore., that represents timber interests, said: “The court order is requiring analysis when not a grain of sand or a single hair on a critter is being moved. And we are going to spend millions of dollars doing it.”
“It’s bureaucracy for bureaucracy’s sake,” Mr. West said.
Just one management plan has been completed under the new rules, the one for the twin Comanche and Cimarron National Grasslands in Colorado and Kansas. At least half a dozen others are well on their way to completion. Their status is questionable given Judge Hamilton’s ruling.
