U.S. Forest Service

The Ninth Circuit’s 10 Most Important Environmental Law Decisions of 2020

Climate Change, California v. Trump Cases Lead the List

This is the second of three year-end posts on the most important environmental law decisions in 2020 from the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and California Supreme Court.  (The key U.S. Supreme Court rulings were the focus of yesterday’s post, and tomorrow’s will feature California Supreme Court decisions.) Today, …

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Surprise! Major Land Conservation Bill Poised to Pass Congress

Republican-Led Senate Prepared to Preserve Public Lands–and Political Careers?

Over the past decade, we’ve become resigned to the sad fact of congressional gridlock: a hopelessly partisan and paralyzed Congress, seemingly unable to pass major legislation on the environmental protection, natural resource conservation or, indeed, any number of other policy fronts. So it has to come as a  shock to most observers that this week …

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U.S. Agricultural Policy, Climate Change, and Existing Legal Authority

New research from Berkeley Law finds that the U.S. Department of Agriculture can act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is much in the news these days, as it implements the massive and always-controversial farm bill, works to improve access to national forests, strives to enhance the U.S. position in international agriculture markets, and wrestles to contain this season’s extensive wildfire activity. What is less obvious to many is …

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How the Pacific Rivers Council case could affect environmental law

As Rick has already noted, a couple of weeks ago the Supreme Court granted cert to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision in U.S. Forest Service v. Pacific Rivers Council.  Rick expressed pessimism about whether the Ninth Circuit’s decision would be upheld in the Supreme Court.  I think he’s probably right about that, but there are …

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U.S. Supreme Court Grants Review in Pacific Rivers Council Case

Today the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in a major forestry and NEPA case from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: U.S. Forest Service v. Pacific Rivers Council, No. 12-623. The case will be argued and decided in the Court’s next (2013-14) Term. The issues the justices have agreed to consider in Pacific Rivers Council are threefold: …

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New Forest Service planning rule highlights the tension between flexibility and accountability

The Forest Service has now finalized the new planning rule it proposed a year ago. The final rule with preamble runs more than 240 pages. I haven’t yet plowed through it. The blog A New Century of Forest Planning is reporting reactions from a variety of sources. So far, there seem to be a lot …

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