Alliance for the Wild Rockies v. Pena

The federal district court for the Eastern District of Washington granted summary judgment to the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and USFS officials in a challenge to the agency’s approval of a restoration, logging, and timber sale venture in the Colville National Forest. The court found that the defendants were not arbitrary and capricious in their environmental analysis and ruled that the plaintiff abandoned and waived a number of claims in its amended complaint, including claims related to climate change. The plaintiff had alleged that the environmental assessment did not “analyze or disclose the body of science that implicates logging activities as a contributor to reduced carbon stocks in forests and increases in greenhouse gas emissions” and also that the assessment failed to provide “any credible analysis as to how realistic and achievable its forest plan” was “in the context of a rapidly changing climate.” The complaint also alleged that the environmental assessment did not address cumulative impacts of ungulates such as cattle and climate change.

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