First Circuit unlikely to stop Trump plan for logging near Appalachian Trail

The judges appeared inclined to allow timber operations on several thousand acres of a scenic national forest.BOSTON (CN) — A Trump administration proposal to allow logging — including clear-cutting — in parts of New Hampshire along the Appalachian Trail went to the First Circuit Wednesday, but the judges showed little enthusiasm for chopping down a lower court’s ruling that allowed lumber operations to proceed.“This is not a case where the agency didn’t consider something. They did,” observed U.S. Circuit Judge Gustavo Gelpí. “We have to be deferential to agency expertise on highly technical matters.”The case involved two plans for intensive timber harvesting in several thousand acres of the White Mountain National Forest, which encompasses more than 800,000 acres across New Hampshire and Maine. One project would allow cutting near scenic Mount Washington, the tallest mountain in the northeastern U.S., while another would affect forests near two significant lakes. The Appalachian Trail runs through or near both areas.An environmental group called Standing Trees challenged the plans as violating the National Forest Management Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.According to the group, the Trump administration didn’t properly consider the logging’s environmental impact, including its effects on water quality and on the endangered northern long-eared bat. The group also claims the administration improperly allowed cutting of old-growth forest and objects to the detrimental effects on the area’s scenic value.But U.S. Circuit Chief Judge David Barron immediately suggested Standing Trees had forfeited its main argument, saying that before the lower court it had merely claimed that the U.S. Forest Service’s documents were “indecipherable,” not that, if they could be deciphered, “there was no there there.”“You told the district court that no human being could possibly understand what’s in the documents,” Barron said to Christophe Courchesne, director of the Environmental Law Center at the Vermont Law and Graduate School.Courchesne insisted Standing Trees had indeed argued that there was no there there, and “it’s a mystery to us as well why the judge didn’t address that.” But Barron, a Barack Obama appointee, responded that he thought the judge’s opinion was “quite careful.”The Forest Service’s lawyer, Robert Stockman, picked up on Barron’s point, saying Standing Trees “didn’t develop the legal arguments sufficiently” and that “we didn’t plan to harvest old-growth forest. That’s our finding. It’s technical to determine that from the record, but it’s possible.”U.S. Circuit Judge Julie Rikelman dove into the details of the documents, sparring with Courchesne over whether particular maps showed any old-growth logging. “We couldn’t find that in the record,” Rikelman said.Courchesne said the Forest Service “couldn’t establish that they’re not affecting old-growth,” but Rikelman, a Joe Biden appointee, seemed unpersuaded.Stockman remarked, “Multiple stands are numbered in different ways for different reasons, and some of the same numbers appear in the timber units but it’s not the same compartment,” perhaps suggesting why there was a claim that the documents were indecipherable.But he insisted the bottom line is “the Forest Service analyzed all the stands and removed all the ones with old-growth forest.” He noted the Administrative Procedure Act “doesn’t require an agency to write a dissertation on each and every point.”And Gelpí, another Biden appointee, again stated that on technical matters judges are required to defer to the expertise of federal agencies.The question isn’t whether the Forest Service was perfect, but whether what it proposed was “arbitrary and capricious,” he said. “It’s a very deferential standard.”Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads