Forest Eviction

Judge tosses out Bush administration's forest-management rules

Heads-up to the Bush administration: You can't always get what you want. (As always, the Rolling Stones know best.) On Friday, a federal judge tossed out the administration's revised forest-management rules, issued in 2005, which allowed national forest managers to approve logging, mining, cell-phone towers, and other commercial projects without undergoing environmental reviews. The U.S. Forest Service had claimed that the new rules were environmentally benign, but had failed to undertake any studies showing that species were unaffected. Siding with 15 green groups, U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled that the administration did not adequately consider the environmental effects of the new rules and failed to properly gather public comment. Says Peter Frost of the Western Environmental Law Center, "I think people who love wildlife and care for our public forest should be elated by this decision." Better elate than never.