Bark v. U.S. Forest Service

The federal district court for the District of Oregon rejected claims that the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) failed to take a hard look at the climate change effects of a forest thinning project in the Mount Hood National Forest. The plaintiffs contended that the USFS’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis was inadequate because it was taken from the environmental assessment for a much smaller previous project and because it did not incorporate information from public comments, including a formula for assessing the carbon impacts of timber sales. The USFS argued that the project would promote the health of the forest, thereby sequestering carbon in the long run. The court wrote that the debate over “[w]hether the Project will have a net positive or negative contribution to carbon emissions depends on whether the USFS is correct in determining that thinning of overstocked stands will contribute to forest health and reduce the risk of fire, insect infestation, and disease.” The court said this question “is appropriately addressed in an analysis of whether the …Project will have highly controversial or uncertain effects” and found that the USFS had satisfied its NEPA hard look obligation by undertaking “a thorough examination of the question.”