Oregon Wild v. U.S. Forest Service

On remand from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal district court for the District of Oregon ruled that the U.S. Forest Service’s 1992 promulgation of a categorical exclusion from National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review for projects that allowed unlimited commercial thinning was arbitrary and capricious. The court found that the record did not show that the Forest Service considered the impact of thinning at any scale and that the court therefore could not conclude that the Forest Service engaged in reasoned decision-making regarding the environmental impacts authorized by the categorical exclusion. The court rejected the federal government’s threshold argument that the statute of limitations barred the challenge, as well as arguments that the plaintiffs’ claims were barred by laches, that the plaintiffs lacked standing, and that the plaintiffs waived their challenge to the categorical exclusion’s validity by failing to raise it during the administrative process. The court concluded that setting aside the categorical exclusion as to all future Forest Service actions as well as the project approvals challenged in this proceeding was the appropriate remedy. The plaintiffs’ original allegations included that projects that involve commercial logging operations inherently result in more significant environmental effects, including release of stored carbon.