Federal appeals court revives Alaska suit on roadless rule News
Federal appeals court revives Alaska suit on roadless rule

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] on Friday that Alaska’s lawsuit challenging the Roadless Rule [text] can be heard because it falls within the statute of limitations. This decision overturns the ruling by the US District Court of the District of Columbia [official website] that dismissed Alaska’s suit [opinion, PDF] against the US Forest Service for waiting too long to file the complaint. The US Forest Service [official website], an agency within the Department of Agriculture, adopted the Roadless Rule in 2001, which banned road construction and timber harvesting on about one-third of the national forest lands, including large portions of land in Alaska. Civil actions against the US must be filed within six years of the date that the “right of action first accrues,” and the Forest Service argued that the statute of limitations clock began ticking when the rule was established in 2001, with the time limit expiring before Alaska filed its complaint in 2011. The court ruled otherwise because the Forest Service repealed this rule and reinstated it in 2006. As stated by Judge Kavanaugh:

It is true that the Roadless Rule, after being repealed by the Forest Service in 2005, was reinstated in 2006 as a result of an order by the District Court for the Northern District of California. … In our judgment, however, it does not matter for these purposes whether the 2006 rule was issued by the agency acting on its own or as a result of a court order. Either way, when the rule was reinstated in 2006 after its repeal in 2005, a new right of action accrued.

This decision remands the case back to the dstrict court for further proceedings on Alaska’s challenge to the Roadless Rule.

The Roadless Conservation Area Rule, implemented by former president Bill Clinton in 2001, has had a long history [advocacy website timeline] of litigation across the country. The Clinton-era rule would have prohibited mining, logging and road construction in the forests of 38 states and Puerto Rico, totaling more than 58 million acres of land. The Clinton administration measure was effectively overturned [JURIST report] in 2005 by the State Petitions Rule [text], enacted by the US Department of Agriculture [official website] under President George W Bush. The State Petitions Rule allowed governors to petition for Roadless Rule protections, depending on their individual state needs, in lieu of blanket protection. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] in 2009 affirmed a district court ruling reinstating the Roadless Rule [JURIST report], a decision analyzed [JURIST op-ed] by JURIST Hotline contributor Mike Dubrasich, Executive Director of the Western Institute for Study of the Environment [advocacy website].