Bench Says No To Forest Service Loophole By Josh Mahan

It’s been over two months since the Forest Service lost its favorite loophole for getting around treehuggers: the categorical exclusion.

A lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club, Earth Island Institute, Sequoia Forestkeeper, Heartwood and the Center for Biological Diversity forces the Forest Service to once again face public scrutiny on controversial logging sales.

Until mid-September a categorical exclusion was a forestry rule designed to let the Forest Service remove a hazard tree from a camp ground without going through a full-blown Environmental Impact Statement. Soon enough the agency was cutting up controversial 200-acre timber sales without using the truly American National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process. September’s ruling shut down over 100 projects on the Forest Service’s Northern Division alone. That’s 100 projects that previously could not be appealed.

I mean we’re not a bunch of Canadians here.

We are supposed to have channels to address grievances.

Under the categorical exclusion reign of terror lawsuits were the only tool available to environmentalists to force the agency to follow the law. Since 2001 the Forest Service has been successfully sued 58 times, with 27 of those coming in 2004, and 17 in 2003. Compare that with 10 in 2002 and four in 2001. The numbers have sky-rocketed as Bush’s watch draws on.

More unsettling than the list of lawsuits is that not a single Forest Service manager has been disciplined for committing environmental violations. The agency has gone rogue.

Lowbagger sends its apologies to the boys and girls in spring green. The categorical exclusion jig is up. And some day the “Forest Health” farce will kiss the same sword. Just like the road building program is. And all of these changes are due to the obstructionist treehugger, the jobless scoundrel entrusted with the duty to force the Forest Service to follow its own laws.

That’s why Lowbagger is maintaining the official editorial stance that calls for a dismantling of the Forest Service as soon as possible. Though these crooks take small steps toward reform, the Forest Service’s track record indicates that they can’t be trusted. Antiquated agencies have no place in the administration of American government, especially when they lose money by the fist-full while liquidating a priceless national resource.  

Take, for instance, Ranger Joni Packard. We’ve drug her name through the mud a time or two on Lowbagger already. This was back when she was orchestrating a series of categorical exclusion cuts on the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail in Idaho this spring. Of course, the categorical exclusion was a legal ploy in those days. But that didn’t stop Lowbagger from calling a timber thief a timber thief. A lawsuit was filed on the sale. And the day the suit was filed the Forest Service did their best to cut every green log in the logging units.

Packard’s also well-known for other agency screw-ups, like the categorical exclusion logging of the Jerry Johnson campground and this summer’s cover up of a helipad cut into the wilderness. Ranger Packard ordered that the helipad be made to look like blow down. These are the types of specifics that illustrate why the Forest Service should be dismantled. Was Ranger Packard reprimanded? No. Merely reassigned. The magician shuffles the deck of cards.

Packard’s activity this spring on the Lewis and Clark Trail would be criminal today. And truthfully, we all know that it was criminal behavior when it went down six months ago. In all the categorical exclusion ruling is another card plucked from the Forest Service deck of tricks. And another feather stuck in the Green cap.

Josh Mahan is tired of the Forest Service breaking the law with tax dollars and impunity.