Gov­er­nor Mead Asks Full Court to Review Road­less Rule Deci­sion (Press Release)

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Gov­er­nor Matt Mead, today, directed the State of Wyoming to peti­tion for a rehear­ing of the deci­sion that upheld the Road­less Rule. Gov­er­nor Mead would like the U.S. Tenth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals to con­sider Wyoming’s argu­ments en banc. 

The Peti­tion for Rehear­ing says that the U.S. For­est Ser­vice vio­lated the Wilder­ness Act when it cre­ated de facto wilder­ness areas across approx­i­mately 59 mil­lion acres of the nation’s forests, includ­ing 3 mil­lion acres in Wyoming. In addi­tion, the Peti­tion states that the For­est Ser­vice rad­i­cally altered the scope of the Road­less Rule with­out prepar­ing a Sup­ple­men­tal Envi­ron­men­tal Impact State­ment in vio­la­tion of the National Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­icy Act; that the For­est Ser­vice cir­cum­vented the National For­est Man­age­ment Act under the guise of nation­wide rule mak­ing; that the For­est Ser­vice is required to eval­u­ate for­est use on a forest-by-forest basis rather than by national rule; and that the For­est Ser­vice pre­de­ter­mined the out­come of the Road­less Rule to sat­isfy a Pres­i­den­tial edict.

“The cre­ation of these de facto wilder­ness areas means the voice of the pub­lic and the State are sti­fled in man­ag­ing the lands here,” Gov­er­nor Mead said. “Not only does this pre­vent many uses of pub­lic land, but it also lim­its our abil­ity to fight back against the bark bee­tles that are dev­as­tat­ing our forests.”

The Peti­tion was filed with the Tenth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals today.