WWP brags on victories
Western Watersheds Project works to protect environmental interests
by Cat Urbigkit, Pinedale Online!
June 14, 2007
Last week’s court decision that threw out the new BLM grazing regulations was called a “great victory” by Western Watersheds Project, who said it was just one in a string of defeats for the Bush Administration in regard to compliance with bedrock American environmental laws as shown in the following federal court decisions:
U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Laporte in California reinstated a ban on most commercial and development activities in Western roadless areas. They will remain open to hunting, hiking and horseback riding, but not to drilling and logging.
U.S. District Judge James Singleton found that that the Interior Department failed to consider the impact on wildlife, particularly caribou, in a plan to drill for oil and gas in the Teshekpuk Lake area in northern Alaska.
U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball ruled that the Bureau of Land Management did not consider an earlier analysis of an area of Utah before planning to sell oil and gas leases. The previous government report, done during the Clinton administration, said the area is pristine and could qualify as a federally protected wilderness area if Congress chose to designate it.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said the Forest Service’s plan for commercial logging in California’s Giant Sequoia National Monument “trampled the applicable environmental laws.” Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Bruce R. Harris found that the Bureau of Land Management ignored air-quality and wildlife data, particularly about an endangered lynx, before selling energy leases on national forest land in western Wyoming.
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy found that the Fish and Wildlife Service had ignored “substantial scientific information that would lead a reasonable person to conclude” that wolverines may be endangered or threatened. He ordered the agency to look into the matter for a year.
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