In a findings and recommendation issued on March 31, 2025, a magistrate judge in the federal district court for the District of Montana recommended that the court grant summary judgment to the U.S. Forest Service and other defendants on claims that approvals for the South Plateau Landscape Area Treatment Project in the Custer Gallatin National Forest violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other laws. The project authorized 5,551 acres of clearcut harvest, 6,593 acres of commercial thinning, and 2,514 acres of non-commercial thinning in a 39,909-acre project area over 15 years. Under NEPA, the magistrate rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the Forest Service failed to take a hard look at climate-related impacts. The magistrate concluded that this case could be distinguished from a 2023 District of Montana <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/center-for-biological-diversity-v-us-forest-service/">decision</a> in which the court found that the Forest Service’s consideration of impacts on carbon emissions failed to meet NEPA’s standards. The magistrate acknowledged factual similarities to the earlier case, but said that in this case the plaintiffs failed to show that the Forest Service borrowed “cookie-cutter” analysis of climate impacts from analyses of another forest. The magistrate also found that the plaintiffs failed to show that the Forest Service’s conclusion “that active management of the Forest might lead to a healthier forest, able to sequester carbon in the future” was unscientific. The magistrate also found that the plaintiffs did not rebut the quantitative carbon emissions analysis in the Custer Gallatin National Forest Plan environmental impact statement (EIS) that underlay the decision to prepare only a qualitative climate change analysis for the project. The EIS concluded that even maximum potential management levels “would have a negligible impact on national and global emissions and on forest carbon stocks.”

Challenge to U.S. Forest Service authorization of a commercial logging project in Custer Gallatin National Forest.

Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Forest Service

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Federal Magistrate Rejected Claim of Inadequate Climate Analysis in NEPA Review of Custer Gallatin National Forest Project

Filed

United States of America

Montana

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Federal Magistrate Rejected Claim of Inadequate Climate Analysis in NEPA Review of Custer Gallatin National Forest Project

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Fossil fuel

Greenhouse gas

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Finance