Excellent ninth circuit opinion today on mootness

One problem with litigating projects like timber sales on public lands is that often they are completed before you ever get to court. When this happens the case is said to be "moot," and it is thus not even heard. This creates a perverse incentive for the agencies and industry to hurry up and log something that is controversial enough to go to court.

A big dent was taken out of the mootness doctrine back in 2002 in a case called Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain v. U.S. Forest Service (.pdf). The holding in that case, that violations of the National Forest Management Act do not necessarily become moot after the logging has occurred, was arguably expanded today in an excellent decision in Oregon Natural Resources Council v. Bureau of Land Management. (.pdf).