A coalition of labor unions, scientific societies, national-park defenders, and local governments has asked a federal judge to halt the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service. They filed on July 1 in federal court in San Francisco, and Judge Susan Illston will hear the request on August 21. You can read the supplemental complaint and the motion to stop it in full.
On the same day, a federal court forced USDA to do the one thing it had spent a year fighting to avoid. It had to hand over its own plan. The department burned a year of legal firepower in district court and at the Ninth Circuit to keep this document buried, and the moment you read it you understand the panic. It’s a confession. For more than a year, USDA looked the American public in the eye and swore up and down it wasn’t gutting the Forest Service. This plan is the proof the department was lying the entire time. We reported in April that the dismantling was illegal. What USDA just surrendered is ugli…
