Recreationists/Loggers File Brief with Supreme Court

HQ wants to commend the joint effort by BRC, Cal4WD, and our good friends at the American Forest Resource Council for filing an amici curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the Clinton-Gore Roadless Rule.

BRC News Release with Link to Friend of the Court Filing (link to brief included in news release)
http://www.sharetrails.org/news/2012/06/19/recreationists-join-effort-bring-roadless-rule-high-court

As many of you know, BRC and partners have been engaged in the ongoing “Roadless Legal” fight since 2001.  For a quick overview of our fight since 2001…please click on the blog link below:

HQ Blog on 12 year fight on roadless issue

http://thegeneralsrecreationden.blogspot.com/2010/01/roadless-legal-update-new-brief-filed.html

HQ wants to thank all of you who have continued to support our efforts to fight against unreasonable politically motivated regulations that have nothing to do with management of our natural resources.

Road Ripping is Coming to a Forest Near You

As the Recreation HQ waits for the Six Rivers complaint to be delivered to federal district court in San Francisco, The General wanted to give riders new to this blog a quick history lesson on the topic of travel management rule-related road-ripping (the politically correct or sanitized term is decommissioning).

Some of you may ask just how did this all get started and what groups are behind it? Well, it started out in the Clinton-Gore administration as a well orchestrated (I don’t use the term conspiracy … I just say darn good planning) effort between federal agents and anti-OHV groups such as the Center of the Prevention of Roads, Trout Unlimited, The Wilderness Society, and many others including the California Wilderness Coalition who got their head anti-OHV guy (Paul Spitler) appointed to the CA OHV Commission in 2000.

It is interesting to note that several driving forces in the Clinton administration are now king pins in the groups pushing subpart A of TMR and use of federal funds via the Legacy Roads Initiative to aggressively rip thousands of miles of good roads and jeep trails throughout the country.

Info on Legacy Roads (and Trails!!!) Remediation Initiative
http://wilderness.org/content/legacy-roads-and-trails-fund

Wildlands Center for the Prevention of Roads (note FS anti-roads guy Jim Furnish as one of the board members)
http://www.wildlandscpr.org/legacy-roads

Trout Unlimited (my good friend Chris Wood – a FS lieutenant in the 90s and master strategist (he is a good fisherman by the way) of the Clinton Roadless Rule and other plans). Chris Woods’ 2010 TU Letter to the FS on Road Decommissioning
http://www.wildlandscpr.org/files/TULegacyRoadsLetter.4F.doc

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The Wilderness Society and Road Ripping

http://wilderness.org/content/putting-forests-work

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The Aforementioned Paul Spitler (fmr. OHV Commissioner) at The Wilderness Society
http://wilderness.org/about-us/experts/paul-spitler

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History of the CA Route Inventory Process (RID) and how Spitler/enviros used the CA program to lay the groundwork for the 2005 TMR and the landscape level trail closures we are seeing on the Shasta Trinity NF and the illegal road ripping that is being challenged in court on the Six Rivers NF.
http://thegeneralsrecreationden.blogspot.com/2009/05/travel-management-good-idea-or-big.html

Enviros continue to bully Region 5 and threaten lawsuits if the FS does not follow their template on issues such as mixed-use, non-designation of “unauthorized” trails, and road decommissioning. As you are beginning to see (many pro-access FS staffers and The General saw this in 2001 as the CA RID process was promoted by enviros, the FS, State Parks, and even some OHV groups), TMR is being used by enviros and some in the agency to implement the closure agenda that was started in the mid 1990s.

Just how road-ripping impacts OHV Wars has yet to be seen. Be assured The General has planned for the fight and asks you to join him.

Thanks for your service!

Obama Administration Launches New Version of Clinton's War on the West?

As the Recreation HQ continues to review the breaking news on the Obama administration’s apparent effort to covertly plan for a massive land grab of historic proportions, The General believes this could signal a new and potentially more devastating version of Clinton’s War on the West.
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Photo: BRC's Don Amador (The General) on Trail 4 in the Stonyford OHV Area. This designated trail is in the pathway of a proposed national monument.

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See June 25, 1994 Article on Clinton’s War on the West
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19940625&id=zgkkAAAAIBAJ&sjid=uuwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6437,4772418

As a soldier in that battle, The General remembers how Clinton’s agency leaders, including Mike Dombeck and Bruce Babbitt, proposed massive land closures or attacks on private property rights. Some of those onerous plans included Dombeck’s unholy triad (the Roadless Rule, The Transportation Rule, and The Planning Rule) and Babbitt’s infamous “National Biological Survey” where his office sought to empower an army of agency biologists to roam free over private property looking for endangered species.

Now it looks like Obama is planning to launch his version of the War on the West. However, unlike Clinton who attacked OHVers, loggers, miners, and ranchers in the open with Dombeck and Babbitt, Obama appears to be planning a sneak attack.

Just as Clinton’s War on the West was met with a loud and effective outcry from public land interests, The General believes that access advocates are in a better position politically to oppose Obama’s ill-advised monument plans

See Today’s BRC News Release including BRC letter to Congress on this issue
http://www.sharetrails.org/releases/?story=685&filter=media

2010 will sure be busy on the access front.

Roadless Legal Update - New Brief Filed

As some of you already know, the BlueRibbon Coalition issued a news release yesterday with an update on our roadless legal fight in the 10th District Court of Appeals. There is a link in the news release to BRC et al’s amici curiae brief (a good read/overview)

BRC News Release on Roadless with link to brief
http://www.sharetrails.org/releases/?story=676&filter=media

The BRC and partners have been in court for the better part of a decade challenging the legal efforts of anti-OHV groups to have some version of the Clinton-Gore Roadless Rule imposed throughout the West including California.

Folks have asked The General, “Does our side ever win any of these legal battles and will the anti-OHV groups ever go away?” The answer to the first part of the question is a resounding YES!

See Overview of BRC et al’s 2001 Legal Challenge to the Roadless Rule
http://www.sharetrails.org/magazine/article.php?id=1305

See News Article on Victory/Judge Lodge Decision on the Roadless Rule
http://www.heartland.org/publications/environment%20climate/article/1066/Court_questions_Clinton_roadless_rule.html

Side note: For those of you following TMR in CA, you will find it more than interesting that the Shasta Trinity National Forest (yes, THAT Forest with currently the most hostile OHV travel proposal so far in CA) was the Forest that played a key role in our legal victory in the Judge Lodge decision (the Forest is mentioned in the above article)

The answer to the second part of the question is an equally (albeit discouraging) strong NO!

As we face ongoing and future legal and administrative roadblocks thrown at us by anti-OHV groups it will be important for those of you new to the fight to understand that we must be just, if not more, determined to defend our form of recreation and access to public lands.

Based on the conversations The General had with riders at the Carnegie Rally - you understand the import of that commitment.

Thanks for your service!