Oregon officials ask Obama administration to protect roadless forests

Governor Kulongoski and Attorney General Kroger continue to urge the Obama administration to continue to uphold and defend the 2001 Roadless Rule.

Oregon's leaders are chiding the Obama administration for appearing to veer from its pledge to protect undeveloped forests from logging and road-building.

In letters sent this week, Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Attorney General John Kroger urge administration officials to uphold a Clinton-era rule protecting about 58 million acres of federal forests.

"Since the Roadless Rule was passed, a long trail of political maneuvers and litigation has
followed," Kulonoski wrote to Tom Vilsack, secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "At present, two court cases remain. The Administration's positions in these two cases have not always reflected the strong support that we expected the Clinton-era Roadless Rule to receive."

The Bush administration replaced the Clinton rule with one that gave individual states the power to decide how to manage the roadless U.S. Forest Service lands within their boundaries, a move Oregon opposed.

In August, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Bush-era rule and reinstated the Clinton-era rule for forests nationwide. But that has not ended the debate over roadless forests.

In their letters, Kulongoski and Kroger say federal attorneys may ask the court to limit its ruling to a handful of Western states.

"I understand that the USDA's attorneys at the Department of Justice may ask the Ninth Circuit to narrow the geographic scope of the injunction that reinstated the Clinton-era Roadless Rule to those states within the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and New Mexico," Kulongoski wrote. "I urge the USDA not to take that course."

The governor also asked the federal government to continue its challenge of lower court's ruling in Wyoming upholding the Bush rule.

Meanwhile, Northwest senators last week introduced a bill to permanently protect roadless forests, of which there are about 2 million acres in Oregon.