Articles

On Monday, February 8, 2016, at 1:30 p.m., Pacific, I’ll be presenting at oral argument before the 9th Circuit in support of our challenge to the closure of over 90% of the user-created motorized travel routes in Tahoe National Forest.  The argument will be held in Courtroom 2, on the 3rd floor of the James R. … ...

What if we, the people, were to ask federal administrative agencies to respond in a timely manner to requests made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)?  The current denizens of the federal government tell us they will respond only if and when sued.  Otherwise, we, the people, can pound salt. That’s what happened in our c ...

Capitol Press published my op ed online this morning, laying out the case that the United States Forest Service was originally founded to protect private water rights, but now steadfastly opposes them. The Forest Service has radically inverted its mission: closing publicly owned forests to public access, mismanaging forest conditions to create ex ...

Liberty Blog readers will recall Pacific Legal Foundation’s recent comment letters to the United States Forest Service, objecting to the Service’s policy and practice of illegally claiming and demanding private water rights in its administration of the nation’s public timber supply. The September 2014 issue of Irrigation Leader m ...

The Forest Service has been earning some attention lately from Pacific Legal Foundation, between the agency’s proposal to seize water rights from ski area operators, to its breathtaking plan to require permits to take pictures of National Forests.  Next, we feature the Service’s plan to expand its domain into regulation of groundwater, ...

Last Friday Pacific Legal Foundation filed this comment letter with the United States Forest Service, in opposition to a proposed policy that would prevent the owners of private water rights from transferring them under state law from existing uses to other more economical uses. The American West has an interesting history of privately held rights ...

The State of Alaska has asked the United States Supreme Court to review a decision of the Ninth Circuit which says that the federal government, instead of the state, has the power to regulate hunting and fishing in navigable waters in Alaska.  PLF has filed an amicus brief in support of Alaska, encouraging the high … ...

Recently, the House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation held an interesting hearing on “Threats, Intimidation and Bullying by Federal Land Management Agencies.”  The witnesses, most of them cattle ranchers from Western states, poignantly summarized the legal and regu ...

On Monday, the Supreme Court granted cert in United States Forest Service v. Pacific Rivers Council, to review the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2-1 decision overturning the Forest Service’s assessment of the environmental impacts of proposed amendments to management plans for eleven Sierra Nevada national forests.  This marks the ...