Skift Take
While limited roads may make sense, over a decade of challenges from multiple political partisans don't, and it serves the forests well to finally be able to plan for the future.
A federal judge ruled Monday that the Parnell administration was more than four years too late in filing its 2011 lawsuit challenging the Forest Service's roadless policy.
"The plaintiffs' case must be dismissed as untimely," said U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, in Washington, D.C., in tossing Alaska's claims.
The roadless rule challenged in the lawsuit was put into effect just before President Clinton left office in 2001. Under it, some 9.3 million acres of the Tongass National Forest in Southeast was set aside, along with nearly all of Chugach National Forest's 5.4 million acres, Anchorage's backyard wilderness.
Leon noted that the rule prevents Forest Service road building and timber cutting on 58.5 million acres nationwide, including the 14.7 million acres in Alaska. The Alaska acreage represents more than the area of Vermont and New Hampshire combined.
"It's a complete victory for the roadless rule," said Tom Waldo, an attorney in Juneau with the environmental organization Earthjustice, which backed the Forest Service in the litigation. "The court's decision means that it's not only too late for the state of Alaska to file a lawsuit against the roadless rule, it's too late for
