Judge declares Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument expansion invalid

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has determined the 2017 expansion of Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument was largely invalid, contradicting an earlier ruling by a federal judge in Oregon. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of the District of Columbia has ruled the Obama Administration violated federal law by expanding the monument’s logging restrictions onto roughly 40,000 acres of so-called O&C Lands, which must be managed for sustained timber production. “Put simply, there is no way to manage land for sustained timber production, while simultaneously deeming the land unsuited for timber production and exempt from any calculation of the land’s sustained yield of timber,” Leon said. The judge’s invalidation of the monument’s expansion was part of a broader opinion that determined there’s “no doubt” the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s 2016 resource management plans for O&C Lands have reduced logging to unlawful levels. “This Court must, therefore, conclude that the 2016 RMPs violate the O&C Act by setting aside timberland in reserves where the land is not managed for permanent forest production and the timber is not sold, cut and removed in conformity with the principle of sustained yield,” Leon said. So-called O&C Lands are governed by a 1937 statute under which roughly two million acres of property were retaken from the Oregon and California Railroad by the federal government and dedicated to timber production. In 2017, the Obama administration enlarged the 66,000-acre Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument by 48,000 acres, most of which were located on O&C Lands, prompting several lawsuits by timber industry organizations. Earlier this year, a federal judge in Oregon held the expansion was lawful because President Obama had the authority under the Antiquities Act to add acreage to the monument. Environmental groups will urge the BLM not to take any action that would endanger the monument while the timber industry considers the expansion’s invalidation to be effective until further notice...MORE

The opinion is embedded below or you can view it here.