Legal Stuff
Laws and Statutes
Environmental laws vary from agency to agency. Since much of our work involves National Forests, their laws make up a lot of the material and links here. We'll work to have more resources that deal with state and local lands laws.
36 CFR 219. Code of Federal Regulations. The bread and butter under which National Forests are managed.
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) The original comprehensive federal environmental law. NEPA requires federal agencies to integrate environmental values into their decision making processes by considering the environmental impacts of their proposed actions and reasonable alternatives to those actions.To meet NEPA requirements federal agencies prepare a detailed statement known as an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). EPA reviews and comments on EISs prepared by other federal agencies, maintains a national filing system for all EISs, and assures that its own actions comply with NEPA.
U.S Code. Title 16: Conservation. Covers National Forests, National Parks, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, soil and water conservation, and much more.
The Wilderness Act. One of the great conservation laws. Passed in 1964, the Wilderness Act provides for and administers our nation's federal wild lands.
Appropriate Use of Mitigation and Monitoring and Clarifying the Appropriate Use of Mitigated Findings of No Significant Impact (CEQ, 2011) The guidance explains the requirements of NEPA and the CEQ Regulations, describes CEQ policies, and recommends procedures for agencies to use to help them comply with the requirements of NEPA and the CEQ Regulations when they establish mitigation planning and implementation procedures. Mitigation (plans to help reduce the harmful enviromental effects of an agency action) is often a big point of contention.
Some Forest Service Agency-Wide and Regional Directives.
Internal management documents, some of which apply to all National Forests. Others apply directly to the Southern Region.
National Forest Management Act Basic overall guidance for the agency as a whole. The Forest Service Handbook and Forest Service Manual go into greater detail.
Forest Service Manual (FSM)All Issuances (Service-wide and Field). The Forest Service Manual (FSM) contains legal authorities, objectives, policies, responsibilities, instructions, and guidance needed on a continuing basis by Forest Service line officers and primary staff in more than one unit to plan and execute assigned programs and activities.
Forest Service Handbooks. Forest Service Handbooks (FSH) are the principal source of specialized guidance and instruction for carrying out the direction issued in the FSM. Specialists and technicians are the primary audience of Handbook direction. Handbooks may also incorporate external directives with related USDA and Forest Service directive supplements.
2001 Roads Rule. Provides direction to the agency towards managing its transportation network.
Guidance for Conserving and Restoring Old-Growth Forest Communities on National Forests in the Southern Region. United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service Southern Region. Forestry Report R8-FR 62. June 1997. Establishes standards for identifying old growth and steps towards "future old growth". Important directive that has kept quite a few trees from the chopping block.
Court Cases: Wins and Losses. DISCLAIMER: Some of these cases might have been overridden by more recent decisions. Research yourself to see if a case is still considered relevant.
Oregon Wild v. Bureau of Land Management. District of Oregon. 2015. Required BLM to make appropriate consideration of citizen-generated data and justify reasons for rejecting it.
Native Ecosystems Council v. United States Forest Service. 9th Circuit. 2002. Agency took required "hard look" at environmental data in decision that timber sale would have no effect on old growth forests and its determination that salvage logging in this site-specific context would accelerate recovery of fire-damaged area.
Sierra Club v. Martin, 11th Circuit. 1997. United States Forest Service was improperly enjoined from timber cutting and road building activities under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
Wetsel-Oviatt Lumber Co. v. United States, US Court of Federal Claims. 1999. Injunction to bar United States from cancelling timber sale to protect spotted owl was appropriate because cancellation was arbitrary, capricious, and without rational basis.
Earth First v. Block. 1983. Environmentalists were granted preliminary injunction to prevent the U.S. Forest Service from changing wilderness character of a "roadless" area because Forest Service never prepared a site specific environmental impact statement as required by NEPA.
Thomas v. Peterson, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF IDAHO, 1984. A forest service's failure to prepare an environmental impact statement in its proposed construction of a road did not violate NEPA when the forest service reasonably concluded that the construction did not significantly affect the environment.
National Wildlife Federation v. United States Forest Service, District Court of Oregon. 1984. An order enjoining timber sales was proper where the United States Forest Service had failed to prepare an environmental impact statement for the proposed sales. Irreparable damage was presumed from the failure to comply with NEPA.
Conner v. Burford, District Court of Montana Butte Division., March 12, 1985, Affirmed In Part, Reversed In Part and Remanded January 13, 1988. If federal government agencies initiated a major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment, they were required by the National Environmental Policy Act to prepare and analyze an environmental impact statement.
Sierra Club v. Espy, 38 F.3d 792, 800 (5th Cir. 1994). The court disagreed with the district court's insistence that NFMA restricts even-aged management to exceptional circumstances, finding that the district court erected too high a barrier to even-aged management.
Ecology Ctr. Inc. v. Austin, 430 F. 3d 1057, 1062 (9th Cir. 2005). In an overturning of a sale in the Lolo NF in Montana, the court upheld that the Forest Service had a mandate to undertake a meaningful soil and water quality analysis in a timber sale.
Motor Vehicles Mfrs. Ass’n of U.S., Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43 (1983). Well-known case that adresses when an agency's decisionmaking is "arbitrary and capricious".