The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged that it had been well out of bounds the past decisions by ruling on scientific issues in which they have no expertise rather than on procedural issues of law.  This major ruling affects both logging on US Forest Service managed lands (directly) and mining on USFS and BLM managed lands.

Briefly, the court acknowledges that the USFS does not need to justify every scientific decision it makes nor fully explore every possible scientific uncertainty. Not only could this be applied to BLM decisions on NEPA documents for mining, but the detailed discussion in the decision on what exactly NEPA requires agencies to do should guide EIS preparation. Doing so makes the Record of Decision even more defensible.

To read the non-technical newspaper report on the decision and its meaning, published in the Portland (OR) "Oregonian" on Friday, July 4th, use this URL: http://tinyurl.com/5kxcja. To download a copy of the actual decision, visit the 'What's New' page on our web site, http://www.appl-ecosys.com/whatsnew.shtml.