Clinton administration's roadless rule reinstated -- for now

Of course the big news today is that a district judge in California has struck down the Bush administration's roadless rule, which means the old Clinton-era rule is back in place.

This has been an amazingly complex, tangled process that is likely to end up in the Supreme Court, as the whole thing calls forth important questions of federal executive power.

Probably the Center for Biological Diversity's press release is as good a place as any to begin; the decision itself is here (pdf).

Briefly: The Clinton administration implemented a rule granting broad protection to roadless areas on federal lands outside the Tongass National Forest, and a successful challenge to that rule in an Idaho district court was overturned by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. However, a subsequent challenge to the rule in a Wyoming district court later threw the status of the rule into disarray again. An appeal of that decision was scheduled to be heard in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals when the Bush administration implemented the new rule, which revoked protection for roadless areas and granted the states some dubious authority to decide the fate of roadless areas. Now, the entire Bush roadless apparatus has been revoked, and the Clinton rule put back in place.

None of it seems to have fazed Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey, who has reportedly stated the court decision does not "justify a change in course."

The decision will almost certainly be appealed, and if affirmed, will almost certainly go to the Supreme Court if an administration hostile to roadless areas is elected in 2008.