Federal appellate court rejects Forest Service plan for Sierra

A federal appellate court has struck down as unlawful a 2004 management plan for Sierra Nevada national forests formulated by George W. Bush's administration, saying it lacks a required analysis of how fish will fare under the plan. A split three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held the Bush plan up next to a plan put in place in the dying days of Bill Clinton's administration, pointing out that the earlier plan includes an insightful and viable look at how fish will be affected by its provisions. The Bush administration took office in January 2001 and immediately began work on its revised plan. Friday's circuit opinion reverses U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England Jr. of Sacramento, who sided with the U.S. Forest Service in a 2008 ruling in which he rejected a challenge by the Pacific Rivers Council to the 2004 management plan's lack of impact analysis regarding fish. The council, an advocacy group that champions aquatic life, contends the 2004 plan is inconsistent with the National Environmental Protection Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. The panel agreed with the council on fish, but found that the 2004 analysis of effects on amphibians, which the council had also challenged, satisfied the requirements of the acts...more