Ag secretary orders environmental rollbacks for Forest Service

U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Friday ordered the U.S. Forest Service to expedite environmental reviews on its land, paving the way for more grazing, logging and oil development on public lands. The directive, announced by Perdue on a trip to Missoula, Mont., comes in the form of an unusual memo to Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen. He called it “a blueprint for reforms to further provide relief from burdensome regulations, improve customer service, and boost the productivity of our National Forests and Grasslands.” The move could be welcome news in Montana, where the state’s ranchers, miners, and oil and gas workers have long argued for increased access to public lands. But environmentalists say the memo affirms a number of dangerous strategies already underway by the Trump administration. “This is a roadmap to national forest destruction, and it’s painful to read,” said Randi Spivak, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s public lands program. The recommendations align with other efforts already taken by the Trump administration and in some cases regulations already underway at the Forest Service. The Forest Service is already in the process of rolling back its role under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) which requires robust environmental reviews of any major action taken by the government on public lands. The White House is pursuing a similar rollback of the law through its Council on Environmental Quality...MORE

You can view the memo here