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Thursday May 10 4:19 PM ET
Federal Judge Blocks Road Ban

By KATHERINE PFLEGER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge in Idaho blocked a ban on road building in
a third of America's national forests, saying the Clinton administration's
rule needed to be amended or it would cause ``irreparable harm.''

The decision Thursday by U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge came less than a
week after the Bush administration said it would allow the rule to take
effect this Saturday while work continued on revisions to allow more local
input.

Lodge said allowing the rule to take effect ``ignores the reality ... that
once something of this magnitude is set in motion, momentum is irresistible,
options are closed and agency commitments, if not set in concrete, will be
the subject of litigation for years to come.''

One of President Clinton (news - web sites)'s key environmental legacies, the
rule would prevent logging and road construction on 58.5 million acres of
federal forests, an area more than twice the size of Ohio.

The state of Idaho and timber giant Boise Cascade had filed a lawsuit asking
Lodge to block the rule. In his decision issued in Boise, the judge said he
agreed with their arguments that allowing the rule to take effect ``poses
serious risks of irreparable harm.''

Environmentalists plan to appeal the decision, which they blamed in part on
the Bush administration's failure to vigorously defend the rule in court.

``We will be glad to fight it in the courts,'' said Doug Honnold, attorney
for Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, which represented conservation groups
that intervened in the suit. ``We think it is a decision that is inconsistent
with environmental rules.''

Meanwhile, the timber industry, which had lobbied against the rule, praised
the decision.

``It's what we said all along, that it was clearly illegal and it is now time
for the administration to move on,'' said Chris West, vice president of
American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group based in Portland,
Ore.

The vast majority of roadless federal forests are in the West, including
parts of Idaho's Bitterroot range and Alaska's Tongass, viewed by
environmentalists as North America's rain forest. Smaller sections are
scattered across the country from Florida's Apalachicola National Forest and
Virginia's George Washington National Forest to New Hampshire's White
Mountains.




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