ELR Citation: ELR 20160
No(s). 04-35868 (9th Cir. Aug 5, 2005)

The court reverses and remands a lower court decision upholding the U.S. Forest Service's land management plan for the Tongass National Forest. The Forest Service's error in assessing market demand for timber fatally infected its balance of economic and environmental considerations, rendering the plan for the Tongass arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. Moreover, the environmental impact statement (EIS) was misleading because it presented as fact for decisionmakers and the public twice the market demand and economic benefit attendant to the plan. Nor did the EIS consider an adequate range of alternatives in light of a correct interpretation of data that the Forest Service had on market demand projections for Tongass timber. Last, the EIS did not consider the cumulative impacts of past and reasonably foreseeable future nonfederal logging in high-volume, old growth forest of the Tongass.