Editor's note: On August 12, 2008, a federal judge in Wyoming blocked enforcement of a rule that would protect roadless national forests from roadbuilding, logging, and oil and gas leasing. Earthjustice is appealing the decision.

In late 2002, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction that had blocked implementation of a rule issued toward the end of the Clinton administration that would preserve the last 58-plus million acres of unroaded, unprotected land on our national forests, land vital for wildlife habitat, watershed protection, recreation, and other purposes. The Forest Service issued the rule after a three-year administrative process that involved more than 600 public meetings and that drew a record-breaking 1.6 million public comments. The rule had been challenged by industry groups and several states in a total of nine separate lawsuits. The administration first delayed the effective date of the rule, then failed to defend it in court, then announced it would return management authority over roadless areas to regional managers, a system that led to the systematic destruction of the forests over the past half-century.

The first case to reach judgment was filed by the state of Idaho and the Boise Cascade Timber Company. In the spring of 2001, a federal judge in Idaho, at the request of the plaintiffs and over only token resistance by the government, issued an injunction blocking implementation of the rule. Earthjustice on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council and eight other conservation groups took an appeal to the Ninth Circuit; the government abandoned the case altogether. Oral argument was held in October 2001. A decision was handed down in December 2002 overturning the Idaho court's injunction.

Meanwhile, in Wyoming, a judge found that the Roadless Rule was an illegal attempt by the executive branch to create wilderness areas, a power reserved to Congress. Earthjustice attorneys appealed to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals which, on July 11, 2005, dismissed the appeal as moot, given the existence of the replacement rule. The court also erased the ruling from the Wyoming judge. In Alaska, where the state challenged the rule, the federal government quietly agreed to the state's demands and the case was dismissed.

In a surprise reversal, the government belatedly defended the roadless rule in a legal brief filed during the summer of 2002. This brief responded to another challenge to the rule filed by the state of North Dakota and is the first real defense of the rule by the federal government. In this case, the government finally admitted the Roadless Rule was legally adopted.