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The Supreme Court Restricts the Availability of Forest-Wide Judicial Review in Ohio Forestry Association v. Sierra Club

Editors' Summary: This past summer, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its decision in Ohio Forestry Ass'n v. Sierra Club, 118 S. Ct. 1665, 28 ELR 21119 (1998). The Court held that an environmental group's challenge to a U.S. Forest Service land and resource management plan for the Wayne National Forest in Ohio was not ripe for review. This Article examines how this decision affects the rules for judicial review of national forest plans.

The Riches of the Desert: Can the Bureau of Land Management Reject a Mining Operation Based on Historic and Cultural Concerns?

At first glance, the California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA) is a 25-million-acre expanse of sand dunes, brush lands, rock formations, and loneliness and desolation. However, a cursory look at the landscape belies the desert's significant historical, scenic, archeological, environmental, biological, cultural, scientific, educational, recreational, and economic resources" that the U.S. Congress recognized when it dedicated the area in 1976.

Response to <em>The Quiet Revolution Revived: Sustainable Design, Land Use Regulation, and the States</em> by Sara Bronin

The focus of much dialogue and debate in the public eye over climate change and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) tends to focus on industrial emissions of pollution for manufacturing or the production of electricity. Emissions from transportation sources (like trains, planes, and automobiles) and from the heating, cooling, and lighting of buildings themselves are less readily visible, yet each constitutes roughly a third of America's total greenhouse gas emissions.

South Dakota Mining Ass'n v. Lawrence County

The court holds that the Federal Mining Act of 1872 preempts a local zoning ordinance that bans surface metal mining within the Spearfish Canyon area of South Dakota. The court first holds that miners' preemption claim against the county ordinance is ripe. The miners have shown a realistic danger of...

Kleissler v. U.S. Forest Serv.

The court holds that local school districts, municipalities, and timber companies may intervene as of right in litigation brought by plaintiff-environmentalists to restrict logging activities in the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania. The court first notes that the parties do not dispute the ...

Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project v. Pence

The court upholds a U.S. Forest Service decision to allow a timber sale in the Malheur National Forest in Oregon. The Forest Service's decision allows the harvest of approximately 10.7-million-board feet of timber from approximately 3,560 acres, which includes 92 acres of conifers encroaching on asp...

Everett v. United States

The court upholds the U.S. Forest Service's denial of a special use permit to land a private helicopter on a parcel of the Sawtooth National Forest that abuts the permit applicant's vacation property in rural Idaho. The court first holds that the Forest Service reasonably interpreted 36 C.F.R. §251...

Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project v. Blackwood

The court holds that the U.S. Forest Service must prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) for several timber salvage sales on fire-damaged land in the Umatilla National Forest in Oregon. The court first holds that the Forest Service did not take the requisite hard look at the environmental i...

Diamond Bar Cattle Co. v. United States

The court holds that two cattle company owners do not have a vested private-property right to graze their cattle in the Apache and Gila National Forests without a U.S. Forest Service permit. The owners argued that because their predecessors-in-title obtained a valid, vested water right under New Mex...

South Trenton Residents Against 29 v. Federal Highway Admin.

The court holds that the Federal Highway Administration's (FHwA's) and a state transportation agency's decision not to complete a supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) for a highway project in New Jersey was reasonable. Several years after a final EIS for the highway was completed, it wa...