A Reprieve For Opponents Of Tongass Logging Agenda

While the Trump administration is adamant it will follow through with its lifting of previous protections for Tongass National Forest and then open up logging business for the timber industry, but a federal judge offered a glimmer of hope, with the caveat that the feds will keep moving the goal posts to allow the federal land to be logged in. Here’s the Alaska Beacon with more:

In an order published Friday, Judge Sharon Gleason dismissed the lawsuit filed by Viking Lumber, Alcan Timber and the Alaska Forest Association. 

The three groups sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture — the parent organization of the U.S. Forest Service — last year, alleging in part that the federal Tongass Timber Reform Act of 1990 required the Forest Service to offer enough timber sales to meet market demand.

Gleason ruled otherwise, finding that TTRA does not impose “a mandatory duty” on the Forest Service to ensure that market demand is met by Tongass timber sales.

“Whether the harvest levels are designed to actually meet market demand is a discretionary agency action, not a mandatory requirement imposed by the TTRA on the Forest Service,” she wrote.