A federal appeals court ruled has upheld the expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Southern Oregon and northwest California, after Oregon-based timber company Murphy sued the federal government over a 2017 expansion of the monument. Murphy argued it interfered with laws requiring the government to set aside land for timber production.
Pilot Rock as seen from the Pacific Crest Trail in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument
Courtesy of Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management
In its Monday ruling, the 9th Circuit Court said the Oregon and California Lands Act, known as the O&C Act, doesn’t say all these forest lands should be used for timber production. They added the law also includes directives to protect watersheds and provide recreational opportunities.
“In rejecting Murphy’s lawsuit, the Ninth Circuit today definitively concluded that conserving O&C Lands for their ecological values is consistent with the law,” said Susan Jane Brown, senior attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center in a press release. “Confirming BLM’s discretion to manage the O&C Lands for conservation values is essential to ensuring these lands will continue to provide ecosystem services for future generations.”
This ruling affirms the decision from a federal judge in 2019, who noted that, while the expansion would protect an additional 40,000 acres of O&C lands from logging, the original monument already covers 23,000 acres of O&C lands.
One of the three appellate judges in the decision, Richard Tallman, dissented, saying the president’s ability to protect federal lands shouldn’t allow them to subvert the will of Congress — which passed the O&C Act — by prohibiting logging.
Tallman said the antiquities act, which allowed the president to designate national monuments, has increasingly been expanded without restriction.
“I am troubled by the President’s overt attempt to circumvent the balance struck by Congress and the majority’s haste in labeling that attempt with the imprimatur of law,” he said in the dissenting opinion.
The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument was created in 2000 by then-President Bill Clinton, as a way to protect the rich biodiversity in the region. The monument lies at the intersection of the Cascade, Siskiyou and Klamath mountain ranges.
Near the end of his term, President Barack Obama expanded the monument to cover a total of over 100,000 acres