First Circuit unlikely to stop Trump plan for logging near Appalachian Trail

The First Circuit heard arguments over a Trump administration plan allowing timber harvesting, including clear-cutting, on several thousand acres of New Hampshire's White Mountain National Forest, near Mount Washington and along stretches of the Appalachian Trail. Environmental group Standing Trees argues the Forest Service failed to properly weigh impacts on water quality, the endangered northern long-eared bat, and old-growth forest, violating federal environmental and procedural law.

Judges including Gustavo Gelpí and Chief Judge David Barron appeared skeptical of overturning the lower court, with Barron suggesting Standing Trees had forfeited its core argument by telling the district court the agency's documents were merely 'indecipherable' rather than substantively deficient. The Forest Service's attorney maintained the agency had analyzed all forest stands and removed any containing old growth, even as he acknowledged the numbering system across documents was confusing enough to explain the original complaint.

Judge Julie Rikelman pressed both sides on whether specific maps showed old-growth logging, saying the court 'couldn't find that in the record,' while Gelpí reiterated that courts owe deference to agency expertise on technical questions unless the decision was arbitrary and capricious.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.