Good News---Judge Nixes Bush Roadless Plan

[Lone_Star_Dem]

A federal judge on Wednesday reinstated the ‘‘Roadless Rule,’’ a Clinton-era ban on road construction in nearly one-third of national forests, overturning a Bush administration rule that allowed states to decide how to manage individual forests.

U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte sided with states — including Montana — and environmental groups that sued the U.S. Forest Service after it reversed President Clinton’s 2001 “Roadless Rule,” which prohibited logging, mining and other development on 58.5 million acres in 38 states and Puerto Rico.

Montana has the third-largest total area that had been affected by the Roadless Rule, with those lands including about 6.4 million acres. Impacted lands around the Helena area include the Little Blackfeet Meadows, the core of the Elkhorns, sections of the Rocky Mountain Front and Mount Baldy and Mount Edith.

Environmental and conservation groups applauded the judge’s decision, although many acknowledged that their legal battle to protect roadless areas isn’t finished.
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http://www.helenair.com/articles/2006/09/21/helena/a01092106_01.txt