[jazusamo]

But Warren J. Ferguson, a senior circuit judge, and Stephen Reinhardt, another judge, blasted back at Smith in a follow-up opinion.

Reinhardt is probably the most liberal moonbat judge in the 9th Circus and that's saying something, looks like judge Smith really ruffled his feathers, good on him.

[TChris]

He said his fellow judges have erected so many legal hurdles they have made logging in national forests nearly impossible.

Well, duh. That's precisely the point, isn't it?

Enviros worship trees. It's morally repugnant to ever actually use one for anything. (Never mind that old forests are unhealthy forests...)

[DuncanWaring]

"In my view there is a correlation between sometimes over-broad court injunctions halting the flow of lumber and the dramatic decrease of employment in logging communities throughout the Pacific Northwest,"

In other news, the sun rises in the east.

[B Knotts]

Judge Smith is absolutely correct. The courts have declared war on the resource industries (and the people who depend on them) of the rural West.

[Sgt_Schultze]

"The frequency of injunctions is evidence of the frequency of unlawful agency actions, nothing more and nothing less," they wrote.

The frequency of the 9th Circuit's blunderous decisions having to be reversed upon appeal by the US Supreme Court, is evidence that the judges on the 9th Circuit court are ill-suited to understand any US law. All decisions by the 9th Circuit court are justifiably suspect.

[tubebender]

One sane voice in the bleak wilderness of the Ninth Circus...

[Sudetenland]

Say what you will about George's judgment in other areas, his judicial appointees have proven to be rock-solid.

It is and will prove to be his greatest legacy and gift to the American people.

[o_zarkman44]

From the article “Even as low-wage timber workers lost their jobs, companies such as Louisiana-Pacific and Weyerhaeuser awarded their corporate leaders multimillion-dollar payouts, the two judges said.”

This has little about environment. This has everything to do with corporate profits derived from “public” government mismanaged land.
The judicial branch is attacking capitalism at it’s core.
The mention of profits in the statement is enough to understand their motive.

[marsh2]

Of course there is a correlation. Here is an excerpt from my recent testimony to the state Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water:

According to the new 2007 California County Data Book, Siskiyou County is now dead last among all California Counties in family economic well-being, having the lowest median income at $30,356, compared to $112,155 for San Mateo County and $56,332 for California as a whole. 65% of households with children ages 0-17 are low income, compared with a California average of 43%. The report notes that 27% of Siskiyou County’s children live in official poverty, compared to 19% for the state. In January 2007, unemployment in the county was 10.8% overall, compared to a statewide level of 5.3%. Using July 2006 periodic figures, 4% of the population of Siskiyou County receive CalWORKs benefits, (formerly Aid to Dependent Children,) compared to 2.8% of the population on a statewide average

According to a 2005 Affordable Housing Study for Siskiyou County, in the area of the Klamath River corridor where logging commonly occurred, the median household income is $22,453, with 54.6% of the population living below the $25,000 mark. The Northwest Forest Plan Socioeconomic Monitoring Module: Klamath National Forest and Three Local Communities Case Study Review Draft - September 3, 2004, determined that in the year 2000, unemployment on the Klamath River corridor was 19.6%, impacted largely by the closure of the lumber mill in Happy Camp.

These indicators of increasing social and economic distress occurred in the aftermath of a series of regulatory events. The Klamath National Forest, the primary National Forest in my district, has a standing inventory of 13.5 billion board feet of timber and grows an additional 654 million board feet of timber each year. Following the implementation of the federal Northwest Forest Plan for northern spotted owl and salmon, the Klamath annual sales volume fell from a 1990-1994 yearly average of 66 million board feet to five million board feet in 2000. Similar restrictions on harvest on private lands have been imposed by the Board of Forestry.

As a result, the county has lost more than 80% of our logging jobs since 1989, (from 951 jobs in 1989, to 331 in 1995, to 186 in 2004.) We have seen the closure of several large sawmills mills such as High Ridge and, most recently, the Cal. Cedar Products mill. Our two remaining mills are plywood veneer using only small diameter trees....

You might also note that logging jobs are typically family wage and good paying for this neck of the woods.

[sportutegrl]

. . . who also happens to be the brother of Oregon Republican Sen. Gordon Smith

How often do we see speculation about a judges' political leanings when they make an outrageous, yet typically liberal decision such as letting a known child rapist go free?

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Judges in the earlier case, Smith said, went as far as "counting owl hoots," to determine whether studies actually proved what the Forest Service said they did. In doing so, he said, "we intrude into areas far beyond our competence."

I disagree.... moonbat Judges are very familiar with night time owl hoots.

[LucyJo]

Truth and common sense cut like a sharp sword. Thank you Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. for having the courage to wield them against the PC environmental BS.