December 26, 2023 3:20 a.m.

The American Forest Resource Council recently announced that 29 members of the U.S. Congress and six organizations have filed legal briefs in support of AFRC’s and the Association of O&C Counties join petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court.

AFRC and AOCC are asking the Court to review the Obama-era expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument and the Bureau of Land Management’s 2016 Resource Plans for Western Oregon O&C lands. AFRC and AOCC believe the case poses legal questions of national interest around Executive Branch overreach and the use of the Antiquities Act to nullify Congressional intent on federal lands.

AFRC President Travis Joseph said, “The illegal expansion of this national monument on O&C lands and the 2016 RMPs – Executive decisions that directly undermine Congressional action on the same lands – set a dangerous precedent for every Federal land management law that Congress has approved”.

The AFRC release said the O&C Act requires the BLM to manage O&C lands for permanent forest production on the basis of sustained-yield, meaning that each year BLM is to harvest the volume of timber that is grown by the forest during the same year so that harvest levels can be sustained in perpetuity. In the final days of his presidency in 2017, President Obama signed a proclamation expanding CSNM by 48,000 acres under the Antiquities Act, most of which overlapped with O&C lands.

Nick Smith of AFRC talked about the issue on the Morning Conversation Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. on News Radio 93-9 FM and 1240 KQEN. That interview is a KQEN Podcast at www.541radio.com