Feds Must Rethink Newly Opened Trails Because of Richard Nixon

The U.S. Forest Service improperly opened 2,000 miles of Sierra Nevada trails to vehicles legal both on and off public highways, a federal judge ruled. Stanislaus National Forest stretches from Lake Tahoe to Yosemite National Park in California. The battle over the use of public lands by unauthorized off-highway vehicles, or OHVs, has simmered for decades. In 1972, President Nixon issued an executive order holding that OHVs are "in frequent conflict with wise land and resource management practices, environmental values and other types of recreational activity." He bolstered that finding with a second order in 1977. The Forest Service's Travel Management Rule (TMR) implements the executive orders that manage OHV use to protect resources and public safety, and minimize use conflicts. In 2009 the Forest Service concluded a four-year review and updated its motorized travel management decision for the area. This decision restricted motorized travel within Stanislaus National Forest to National Forest Transportation System (NFTS) routes only, though it added 137 miles of previously unauthorized trails and logging roads to the official map. While the Forest Service also changed 93 miles of NFTS roads to allow off-road vehicles, it restricted another 400 miles of roads once open to OHV to highway-legal vehicles only. Three environmental groups - Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center, the Wilderness Society and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility - sued the U.S. Forest Service in 2010, claiming violations of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedures Act (APA)...more

Notice that the travel plans on all these forests implement Nixon's EOs.  Oh yes, tricky dick was quite a friend to the enviros.  Let's see, there was:

° NEPA in 1969
° An EO to create the EPA 1970
° An EO to create the CEQ 1970
° An EO to ban Compound 1080, strychnine, cyanide, and thallium by federal agents on federal lands
° Clean Air Act in 1972
° Marine Mammal Protection Act 1972 
° Endangered Species Act 1973

I'm sure there was other stuff I can't remember but he was a good buddy to the environmental movement.

And by the way, Reagan issued an EO rescinding Nixon's ban on chemicals for predator control.