Bark v. U.S. Forest Service

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a federal district court in Oregon and held that the U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS’s) decision not to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) for a forest thinning project in Mount Hood National Forest was arbitrary and capricious. The appellate court found that the USFS had failed to “engage with the considerable contrary scientific and expert opinion” identified in public comments on the environmental assessment (EA) concerning forest thinning’s effectiveness in suppressing wildfires. The Ninth Circuit also said the EA did not sufficiently identify and analyze cumulative impacts. The Ninth Circuit concluded that both of these factors raised “substantial questions” about whether the project would have significant effects and that an EIS was therefore required. The Ninth Circuit did not directly address the issue of the project’s effects on climate change, an issue about which the district court concluded the USFS had undertaken a “thorough examination.”