Obama moves to block road building in national forests

The Obama administration says it will defend a 2001 rule imposed by President Bill Clinton that blocked road construction and other development on tens of millions of acres of remote national forests. The administration's decision was contained in court papers filed Thursday in a case in Wyoming that could help settle the fate of remote federal forests. The administration is siding with environmentalists in the case. Conflicting court opinions have variously upheld and blocked the so-called Roadless Rule, which prohibited commercial logging, mining and other development on about 58 million acres of national forest in 38 states and Puerto Rico. A subsequent Bush administration rule had cleared the way for more commercial activity there. A spokesman for the Justice Department said the appeal notice, filed in U.S. District Court in Wyoming, meets a Friday deadline to preserve the government's right to pursue the appeal...AP