Winners, losers react to decision, which lets stand appeals court decisions allowing thousands of acres to remain off limits to logging

By Shaun Hall, Rogue Valley Times

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday announced it would not hear appeals in two court cases that upheld the 2017 expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.

Conservationists and other monument supporters celebrated, while timber industry organizations and other opponents of the expansion expressed disappointment.

Two of the court’s nine justices dissented, though no specific reasons were given.

The court’s decision means that rulings by appellate courts headquartered in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco supporting the expansion remain in place.

“The Supreme Court will not take review,” said Seattle attorney Kristen L. Boyles, of the environmental law group Earthjustice, in a phone interview with the Rogue Valley Times. Boyles represented conservation groups in the litigation, which began seven years ago. “The previous final decisions of those two (circuit courts) stay in place. It’s final. Done. It’s the law of the land.

“I’m relieved that a very long court battle is over and that the monument stays a monument for everyone.”

The 114,000-acre monument, located on uplands east and southeast of Ashland, was created by proclamation in 2000 by President Bill Clinton and expanded by nearly 48,000 acres in 2017 by President Barack Obama. The expansion took in nearly 40,000 acres of what are known as Oregon and California, or O&C, federal lands, which typically are managed for timber production, but now are protected within the monument.

The proclamations were issued using the authority granted presidents under the Antiquities Act of 1906, although Obama’s authority was questioned in legal proceedings by timber interests, including local mill operator Murphy Company; county governments, including the Jackson County Board of Commissioners; and members of Congress, including Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, whose district includes Jackson County.

Comments from the participants about Monday’s Supreme Court decision include the following:

• “The Supreme Court, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, the Ninth Circuit, and the Oregon Federal District Court have now all thwarted seven years of litigious attempts by the industrial logging lobby and their county commissioners to nuke the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument expansion,” Dave Willis, chairman of the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council, wrote in an emailed statement. “The courts have again made it abundantly clear that the timber industry’s narrow, selective, self-serving, and environmentally damaging reading of the O&C Act is — and always has been — wrong. We are grateful to our attorneys and the Department of Justice for their able defense. The Monument expansion stands.”

• “Two federal appellate courts previously ruled against the timber companies that attacked the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument and its streams, fish, wildlife, and recreation,” wrote attorneys Boyles of Earthjustice and Susan Jane Brown of Silvix Resources, representing conservation groups defending the monument. “Monument supporters have fought for decades to protect this special place, renowned for its remarkable biodiversity. The Supreme Court’s order shuts down timber’s transparent greed.”

• “I’m not going to cry over the result,” said John Murphy, president of local mills operator Murphy Company, in a telephone interview. “It probably was a little bit of a stretch for us to be heard. It’s tough to get on the agenda (of the Supreme Court).

“We’re going to move on,” Murphy continued. “We need timber to run our mills.

“It’s kind of a tough subject. It’s tough to get hit in the gut.”

Murphy said he expects some logging to take place to reduce risks from wildfires. He also said the first quarter of this year was better for his company than expected.

“Our operations right now in White City and Rogue River are stable,” he said. “As long as they keep the economy rolling, I think we’re going to be fine.”

• “It is disappointing news,” Jackson County Commissioner Colleen Roberts wrote. “The decision to hear the case or deny the case, in my view, is bigger than the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, it’s about the land management of all of our Federal lands and the laws that have been established by Congress to manage them.

“Do the laws mean what they say, or are they up for grabs by any unfettered authority? Seems as though there will be continued uncertainty over the management of O&C lands in general … this is very grave news for the future of the wood products industry and its workers in southern Oregon.”

• “We’re disappointed the Supreme Court did not take this historic opportunity to provide balance to growing Executive overreach on federal lands through the Antiquities Act, and legal clarity for our forests, communities, and the people who steward them,” wrote Travis Joseph, president of the American Forest Resources Council, a timber industry trade association group.

• “While disappointing, this decision was not a surprise,” said Doug Robertson, a former Douglas County commissioner and current executive director of the Association of O&C Counties. “We knew getting our case before the Supreme Court would be very difficult.

“The Association of O&C Counties has historically prioritized maintaining the O&C lands for sustained yield management as mandated by the 1937 O&C Act. Diminishing the number of acres available for management impacts the employment, the economy, and the overall stability of all the O&C Counties in Oregon. The Association will continue to work closely with the BLM state office on the future management of the O&C lands.”

• Congressman Bentz did not post any comments about the decision to his website or social media on Monday, but he posted comments in December, when he and 27 other Republican members of Congress filed a brief with the court urging that it consider the appeal.

“The Constitution makes it clear that Congress, not the President, makes our laws,” Bentz wrote. “The President’s job is not to make law, but to enforce them. Yet, in recent years, Presidents have increasingly usurped congressional authority by using the Antiquities Act to ‘Monumentize’ millions upon millions of acres of public land rendering massive areas largely untouchable. This blatant disregard for the will of the people is an affront to the Constitution.”

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., a supporter of the monument’s expansion, issued a brief statement via social media.

“BIG NEWS,” he wrote. “We just saw a huge win in protecting one of our state’s natural treasures, Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Southern Oregon! The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a challenge to the monument’s expansion — critical to protecting this unparalleled biodiversity.”

In related matters, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is expected to soon release a draft updated plan for how to manage the monument, including its biological, geological, aquatic, archeological and historic resources.

March 26: Year in which Antiquities Act was enacted corrected (1906, not 1937).

Reach Rogue Valley Times outdoors and environmental reporter Shaun Hall at 458-225-7179 or [email protected]. This story first appeared in the Rogue Valley Times.

Related story: Cascade-Siskiyou monument ‘scoping report’ released