The ruling overturns a Bush administration rule that allowed states to decide how to manage individual forests.
U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte sided with states and 20 environmental groups that sued the U.S. Forest Service after it reversed Clinton's 2001 “roadless rule” that prohibited logging, mining and other development on 58.5 million acres of public land in 38 states.
Last May, the Bush administration replaced the rule with a process that required governors to petition the federal government to protect national forest roadless lands in their states.
But Laporte ruled that the process violated federal law because it didn't require the necessary environmental studies.
Hal Harper, Gov. Brian Schweitzer's chief policy adviser, said Montana will continue forward with the petition process until it hears otherwise from the courts.
The governor's office has been working with county commissioners and other Montanans to put together the state's roadless petition. Harper said he's confident the state's petition would be completed by the November deadline set the Bush administration.
“We'd like very much to hear from the court if they think we shouldn't continue forward with that process,” Harper said.
Reaction to the court's decision in Montana was mixed.
“It is unfortunate that after six years of debate and several rulings to the contrary in other judicial venues that we are exactly where we were six years ago, when former President Clinton threw the roadless rule bone out to his environmental supporters as an exit strategy,” said Julia Altemus of the Montana Logging Association.
This most recent court decision didn't take into account that the Forest Service was given 30 days in 2000 to determine which lands were either inventoried roadless or should be proposed as roadless by the Clinton administration, she said.
That rush didn't allow the agency to do an adequate analysis - something that's required by the National Environmental Policy Act whenever a federal proposal might affect the quality of the human environment, Altemus said.
“When lands are taken out of production and put to rest - that certainly triggers a major federal action that significantly affects the quality of the human environment,” she said.
In the meantime, Montana's national forests aren't getting any healthier, she said.
“We broke a 45-year record high for loss of habitat due to wildfire this year,” Altemus said. “Locking away another 6.4 million acres to non-management only further hampers a land manager's ability to mitigate for record high acres of disease and mortality lying across vast and important watersheds.”
Montana conservation and environmental groups lauded the decision.
“This decision confirms what Montanans have been saying all along. In order to maintain quality hunting and fishing in Montana, we need to conserve the backcountry values of our roadless national forests,” said Tony Hoyt, board member of Hellgate Hunters and Anglers in Missoula.
“Roadless backcountry areas are important for the clean water that feeds our blue-ribbon trout streams and they provide our communities and ranches with clean drinking and irrigation water,” Hoyt said.
Backcountry areas like the Great Burn, Rocky Mountain Front and West Big Hole provide the secure habitat needed to maintain Montana's five-week general big game season, he said.
John Gatchell, conservation director for the Montana Wilderness Association, said public hearings in Montana have shown wide support for maintaining roadless areas as part of the state's heritage.
“It's great news for Montanans to know that our wildest mountain lands will remain that way,” Gatchell said. “These are the places that sustain our great hunting and fishing traditions, and there is no finer place to take kids camping and fishing and hunting than in Montana's wild public lands.”
Reporter Perry Backus can be reached at 523-5259 or at pbackus@missoulian.com
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