Cottonwood Environmental Law Center v. Erickson

The federal district court of the District of Montana dismissed the case, granting the plaintiffs' notice of voluntary dismissal.

A conservation group filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Montana alleging that the U.S. Forest Service violated NEPA by failing to take a hard look at the impacts of logging when combined with climate change in the revised Custer Gallatin National Forest Plan. The complaint alleged that the Forest Service previously determined that revisions to the plan were necessary to address climate change impacts but that the agency failed to disclose and analyze information from a 2017 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that found that forest thinning combined with warming could result in conversion of forested areas to nonforest when it concluded that forests affected by old growth timber sales would remain forests. The plaintiff asked the court to vacate and enjoin the old growth timber sales and partially vacate the forest plan and associated NEPA analysis.