...This is the line of reasoning the feds’ lawyers will push when U.S. Forest Service vs. Pacific Rivers Council hits the Supreme Court this fall. The debate--who has the right to sue over a forest plan and when--dates back to 2005, when Pacific Rivers Council sued the Forest Service over the Bush-era Framework, arguing that it did not do enough to protect watersheds and fish...
In lawyer-speak, the issue at hand is “legal standing,” which, in plain English, means the person bringing the case has been harmed by the person they’re suing, and a favorable court ruling could make things better...
The government’s counter-argument is to say that the Sierra Nevada Framework is just a plan, and no one is harmed until an actual logging project is approved. In other words, the feds are arguing the PRC can’t legally challenge the forest plan until the things they are opposing—increased logging and road building, for example—are underway.
But Greg Loarie, an Earthjustice attorney who brought a different lawsuit against the Forest Service over the Bush-era Framework, questions this logic. “If (the plan) is just paper on a shelf somewhere, then why did Congress see fit to require them?”...
In a blog for Legal Planet, Rick Frank, director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center, doubts the court will rule in PRC’s favor. He says the court has a track record of interpreting the legal standing issue to “bar environmental organizations from pursuing their legal grievances in federal court,” and notes that the court has never, in the 43-year history of NEPA, ruled against the government when it is challenged by an environmental group.
1 comment:
you left out the best part
“obfuscating bureaucratese” in the EIS that undermined its usefulness as a public informational document.
They are on to us
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