Alliance for the Wild Rockies v. U.S. Forest Service

Alliance for the Wild Rockies challenged the U.S. Forest Service’s decisions to proceed with a project that would open 36,400 acres of the Colville National Forest to commercial logging, pre-commercial logging, and burning. The complaint alleged that the Forest Service failed to take a hard look at the project’s impacts, including its contributions to climate change, and that the Forest Service failed to examine the reasonably foreseeable impacts that climate change would have on the project. Other alleged shortcomings in the environmental analysis related to climate change included failure “to perform sufficient analysis of … direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts on Forest vegetation, including old-growth and snag structures that furnish unique habitat for many species and help to mitigate climate change.” The complaint asserted violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.