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A federal judge on Friday, March 30, rejected Bush Administration rules that offered national forest managers less oversight in approving logging and other commercial projects, and which curtailed some environmental reviews.

U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled that the government failed to adequately consider the effects the rules would have on the environment and neglected to properly gather public comment on the issue, according to documents posted on the Justice Department's Web site on Friday afternoon.

Hamilton said in her written decision that the government couldn't institute the new rules until proper environmental reviews were conducted, but she declined to specify how the nation's 155 national forests should be managed until then.

The ruling overturns a key administration environmental rule that governs all 192 million acres of national forests and stops plans such as logging and mining in the parks.

"The Bush administration’s rules would have undone 20 years of protections for wildlife and clean water," said Sierra Club Forest Policy Specialist Sean Cosgrove in a press release. "This ruling is a huge victory for all Americans who hunt, fish, and enjoy our National Forests."

"These regulations were designed by a former timber industry lobbyist," Cosgrove said. "They put the timber industry first and citizens and wildlife last. They would have silenced the voices of citizens in local forest planning, and allowed destructive projects to move forward with little oversight."

"The court verified what we already knew--that the Bush administration has used every angle possible to undo protections for our wildlife, forests, and clean water," said Cosgrove. "At a time when wildlife face mounting threats, we need to move towards responsible forest management that protects our public lands for future generations instead of giving them away to special interests."

Hamilton issued a single ruling for both cases.

U.S. Forest Service spokesman Joe Walsh said the government was reviewing the decision and noted it differs from rulings on similar cases in two other federal courts, including the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

Department of Justice spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson said government lawyers are reviewing the decision and have not decided whether to appeal.

When government officials announced in December 2004 the first new rules since the 1970s, they said changes would allow forest managers to respond more quickly to wildfires and other threats such as invasive species.

Forest managers have complained that without the new rules they must conduct studies that can take up to seven years to complete. The new rules would have allowed for forest plan revisions to be completed in two years to three years, officials said.

The rules were challenged in October 2004 by Earthjustice, the environmentalist action group that represented Defenders of Wildlife, The Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club and Vermont Natural Resources Council.

Pete Frost from the Western Environmental Law Center represented Citizens for Better Forestry in a similar case that was also decided in today's ruling.

The State of California also filed a lawsuit against the rule changes.

The decision is available online here.

"The national forest planning rules are like the Constitution for our National Forests, and the Bush administration tried to throw out the Bill of Rights," said Trent Orr of Earthjustice who argued the case before Judge Hamilton.

"The Bush rule changes made any wildlife provisions in forest management plans purely aspirational, but the nation's wildlife deserve more than a 'hope and a prayer' planning system."