"They’ve opened Pandora’s Box here" - Oregon lawsuit and the Congressional Review Act

[Justabirdwatcher]

Oregon lawsuit could upend federal management of public lands

Federal plans for millions of acres of land could be invalid under a new interpretation of a 1996 law.

www.govexec.com

 

[Justabirdwatcher]

"Using this new interpretation, Republicans in the past two years have revoked plans that restricted mining and oil production on federal lands in Alaska, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming.

But the repercussions could go well beyond those specific plans.

None of the plans issued by federal land managers over the past 30 years was ever submitted for review, because no one at the time considered them to be rules. In other words, hundreds of plans covering millions of acres of land could be deemed invalid under the new congressional interpretation.

Oregon lawsuit​

Now, a lawsuit in Oregon will put that argument to the test. Cascadia Wildlands, a conservation group in the Pacific Northwest, has filed a complaint challenging a timber harvest on Bureau of Land Management land in western Oregon. That logging project was approved under a management plan that was issued in 2016.

Since Congress now considers such plans to be rules, the plaintiffs argue, the 2016 plan never took effect because it was never submitted to Congress."