US judges overturn logging challenge

US federal judges have ruled that their own court has gone too far in holding up logging projects, according to a report in the Oregonian newspaper. The ruling overturns a challenge by environmentalists to an Idaho timber sale.

Mark Rey, the undersecretary of agriculture who oversees the US Forest Service, is reported as having called the ruling the most important decision in a national forest environmental case in two decades because it cleared a path for projects designed to thin overgrown forests at high risk of wildfire and insect outbreaks.

“The judges established a much more limited framework for judicial review of Forest Service decisions, a framework that’s much more consistent with the standard used by other circuits,” Mr Rey is understood to have told The Associated Press.

“The court says its role is not to act as a panel of scientists. They wanted to move back to a more appropriate role.”