"It is just good government to let everybody have their say," said Doug Honnold, an attorney for Earthjustice Legal Defense, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of The Wilderness Society, American Wildlands and Pacific Rivers Council.
It is also the law, he said.
Neither the Forest Service nor the Bush administration has the authority to ignore an act of Congress, Honnold said. "Congress set up rules that we think are crystal clear. These regulations seem to cut the public out of the process - or, at the very least, allow the Forest Service to cut the public out of the process."
"We say you've got to provide notice, comment and administrative appeals for every logging proposal," he said. "And that's the way it should be, because people care about our national forests."
Filed in federal District Court in Missoula, the lawsuit asks that portions of the new regulations that violate the Appeals Reform Act be declared invalid.
In recent months, the Forest Service and Agriculture Department have announced a number of regulatory changes intended to speed up logging in the national forests, particularly in forests considered at high risk of wildfire, insect attack or disease.
Last week, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey announced the elimination of environmental analyses for small timber sales, a process called "categorical exclusion." A month earlier, Rey exempted hazardous fuels reduction projects from environmental review, so long as the logging covered less than 1,000 acres.
Last November, the Forest Service proposed a quickened process for revising forest management plans without full-blown environmental impact statements and the analysis of numerous alternatives. That proposal also would let the agency adopt interim forest plan amendments with no public notice.
Honnold blamed the changes on Rey, who worked as a timber industry lobbyist from 1976 to 1994 - and who now is the Bush appointee charged with overseeing the Forest Service.
"If they are allowed to take this approach, to exempt small timber sales from public review, there would be nothing to prevent them from taking a big sale and dividing it into many small pieces," Honnold said. "They would be able to cut the public out entirely."
Rey disputed that claim late last week in a conference call with timber industry leaders from western Montana and Republican members of the state's congressional delegation. Environmentalists and the media, he said, are misleading the public - which still has access to government and to the decision-making process.
Not so, Honnold said Tuesday.
One of the new regulations, for example, allows appeals only from people who submit "substantive comments" during the public comment process. The Appeals Reform Act says all citizens may appeal Forest Service decisions, provided they either submit comments or "otherwise express interest" in a project.
Other regulations eliminate standard procedures of public notice, the opportunity to comment and the right to administrative appeals whenever the Forest Service decides to designate a project as "categorically excluded" from the National Environmental Policy Act.
Honnold said the lawsuit was filed in Missoula because U.S. District Judge Don Molloy previously ruled on one of the issues, namely that the requirements for public comment and criticism still apply even if a timber sale is approved by an Agriculture Department official - Rey - rather than the Forest Service.
In that case, involving salvage logging in the Bitterroot National Forest, Molloy said: "It is presumptuous to believe that the agency's final decision has a perfection about it that would not be illuminated by interested comment, questioning or requests for justification of propositions asserted in it."
"From the agency's perspective, the administrative appeal provides an opportunity to correct mistakes or to reconcile inconsistencies, thus narrowing issues that might be subject to judicial review," the judge wrote. "The agency might alter, amend or reconsider its decision depending on the issues raised in the administrative appeal. Ultimately, its force is to allow the democratic process of participation in governmental decision the full breadth and scope to which citizens are entitled in a participatory democracy."
Molloy, in turn, has been the focus of criticism from Rey and others in recent months, who believe he has sided too often with environmentalists by shutting down some timber sales. Last week, in fact, Rey encouraged congressmen to enact legislation giving federal judges more specific criteria by which to judge environmentalists' lawsuits.
Honnold said he hopes the new lawsuit will be assigned to Molloy, as he has already ruled on the public's right to appeal timber sales.
"He has already said this approach is illegal," Honnold said, "and then the Forest Service ignored the ruling and went forward with rulemaking that directly contradicted his order. The administration is trying to thumb its nose at the court. I'm sure they anticipated this lawsuit all along."
Administration officials did not return telephone calls about the lawsuit Tuesday.
Reporter Sherry Devlin can be reached at 523-5268 or at sdevlin@missoulian.com
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