Environmental groups challenged the U.S. Forest Service’s authorization of a roadside hazard tree project covering nine national forests in California. They alleged that the Forest Service failed to comply with NEPA when it approved the project, which would be “one of the largest, if not the largest, logging/vegetation management projects ever proposed in California’s history,” covering more than 400,000 acres. They alleged, among other things, that the Forest Service failed to properly analyze and disclose the project’s impacts on climate change and carbon storage.

Challenge to the U.S. Forest Service’s authorization of a roadside hazard tree project covering nine national forests in California.

Klamath Forest Alliance v. U.S. Forest Service

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NEPA Lawsuit Challenged Forest Service’s Review of Roadside Hazard Tree Project in California

Filed

United States of America

California

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An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

Risk is the potential for adverse consequences resulting from the dynamic interplay between (climate-related) hazards, exposure, and vulnerability of affected human or ecological systems.

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Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects, in order to moderate harm, increase resilience or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate change and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate change and its effects.

The management and allocation of funds, assets and investments to meet various objectives

Zoning and spatial planning are both methods for guiding the distribution of people and activities in a space, and are regulatory restriction.

Using laws and the legal system more broadly to protect vulnerable entities

Either money or something of monetary value is transferred between two or more organisations, people or countries.

Actions or measures to adapt terrestrial systems to climate change.

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Actions or measures to adapt freshwater, coastal and marine systems to climate change.

Extreme weather refers to events where a weather variable exceeds (or falls below) a threshold. Meaning it is significantly different from the average or usual weather pattern.

A drought is an extended period of unusually dry weather marked by a significant and sustained lack of precipitation, falling below a specific threshold over a large area for more than a month

Terrestrial means "of the earth" and relates to the risks to ecological system that includes all living organisms and their interactions within land-based environments, such as forests, grasslands, and deserts.

Air pollution involves harmful contaminants in the air, affecting both indoor and outdoor environments. It can lead to health issues like respiratory diseases and heart problems, and climate impacts such as global warming. Pollutants can damage plants, trees, habitats, and water bodies like rivers and lakes.

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woman and genders outside of the gender binary

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Climate change can have a range of impacts on technological system. Extreme weather events can cause infrastructure failures like power outages or damage to roads and bridges, as well as the impacts from waste following natural disasters. Human activities also cause technological impacts, such as the risks posed by oil spillage and leaks.

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Geohazards are adverse geological phenomenon's that are capable of causing widespread damage or loss to property, life and the environment, such as earthquakes, volcano eruptions and tsunamis. Climate change can increase the frequency and severity of some geohazards, such as landslides, and soil erosion.

NEPA Lawsuit Challenged Forest Service’s Review of Roadside Hazard Tree Project in California

Policy instrument

Risk

Impacted group

Just transition

Fossil fuel

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector

Adaptation/resilience

Finance