“Under the Bush administration, we have witnessed the largest
unravelling of environmental protections including the attempt to
gut the Clinton Roadless Rule protecting millions of acres of
national forests. Today, we feel that justice is being served and
the voices of the American people are finally being heard with the
reinstatement of these protections.
“Regrettably, one of our most pristine areas, the Tongass
National Forest in Alaska remains unprotected even with this
decision. The Bush administration’s effort to gut forest
protections has been made without consideration of ecology,
economics, biology, cost to communities, or common sense, but
Greenpeace will continue to fight for its protection.”
Background: Today, Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte of the
U.S. District Court in San Francisco sided with the Governors of
New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, the State Attorney of California,
and 20 environmental groups including Greenpeace and reinstated the
Clinton rule thereby throwing out the Bush administration’s
roadless petition plan.
The Clinton rule put 58.5 million acres of national forest
off-limits to road building, logging, and other development. In
2003, the Bush administration exempted America’s largest national
forest, the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, from the rule, and
the administration later gutted the Roadless Rule nationwide. The
litigation addressed both actions. Today’s court order reinstated
the Roadless Rule, but exempted the Tongass National Forest.
Approximately 2.5 million Americans commented on the Roadless
Rule after it was proposed in 1998. More than 95 percent of these
people supported the proposed ban on new road building in our
largest tracts of undeveloped forest.
Contact: Jane Kochersperger, Greenpeace Media Officer,
202-415-5477 cell
VVPR info: Photos: http://usaphoto.greenpeace.org/Forest/FCS092006/
