Reply #23: Feds throw back the WOPR

[central scrutinizer]

Source: Eugene Register-Guard

Legal challenges and an administration change ended an aggressive logging plan for some of Oregon’s public forests long before any trees came down.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Thursday withdrew the Bureau of Land Management’s Western Oregon Plan Revision, which would have tripled the allowable timber harvest on 2.2 million acres of Western Oregon forests. Salazar called the management plan legally indefensible because it failed to follow federal environmental rules.

The Western Oregon Plan Revision took five years to write, cost the BLM $17.6 million and was the result of a legal settlement with the timber industry.

The Bush administration finalized it in late December 2008, and the lawsuits began in January.

Read more: http://registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/17206288-41/story.csp