Opinion ID: 736846
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The President's Forest Plan

Text: 2 This case arises out of the latest round of litigation surrounding environmental protections for the spotted owl and the management of the forests in the Pacific Northwest. In response to prior litigation ordering the government to comply with various environmental statutes, see Seattle Audubon Soc'y v. Moseley, 798 F.Supp. 1484 (W.D.Wash.1992), aff'd sub nom. Seattle Audubon Soc'y v. Espy, 998 F.2d 699 (9th Cir.1993); Portland Audubon Soc'y v. Lujan, 795 F.Supp. 1489 (D.Or.1992), aff'd sub nom. Portland Audubon Soc'y v. Babbitt, 998 F.2d 705 (9th Cir.1993), on April 13, 1994, the Secretary of the Interior adopted a new plan for the lands [323 U.S.App.D.C. 266] managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in western Oregon. (This plan is hereinafter referred to as the Plan.) The Plan was entered into jointly with the Secretary of Agriculture, who adopted a new plan applicable to some 20 million acres of Forest Service land throughout western Oregon and Washington. 3 Anticipating that the issuance of the new 1994 management Plan would engender a host of claims, the agencies requested a status conference before Judge Dwyer, who was still presiding over part of the earlier litigation, in the Western District of Washington. The Government urged that all challenges to the Plan be decided in one court, and that the Western District of Washington was the logical forum. In a scheduling order issued shortly after the conference, Judge Dwyer expressed his view that it is clear that all legal challenges to the [Plan] should be decided in the same district and reviewed by the same court of appeals, but he said that no order could be entered to this effect. Seattle Audubon Soc'y v. Lyons, No. C92-479WD (W.D.Wash. Apr. 21, 1994), reprinted in J.A. 105-06. 4 Following the announcement of the 1994 Plan, environmental groups did indeed file several challenges in the Western District of Washington. These cases were consolidated as Seattle Audubon Soc'y v. Lyons and assigned to Judge Dwyer. One of the challenges to the Plan was a continuation of one of the earlier cases that had given rise to the Plan, Seattle Audubon Soc'y v. Moseley, 798 F.Supp. at 1484. In that case, NFRC, one of the appellants here, had intervened as a defendant on behalf of a previous management plan.