A federal judge in Idaho yesterday ruled that the Forest Service had misapplied a legislative rider by Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) that sought to block the agency's decision to reduce grazing on the Payette National Forest.

Ruling from the bench, Judge Lynn Winmill said the agency was "cherry-picking" how it applied the rider when it decided not to carry out the last two phases of a plan to protect bighorn sheep from contracting a deadly disease from their domestic kin, according to the group that challenged the agency's decision.

"Judge Winmill has correctly read the language of the congressional rider," said Jon Marvel, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, which joined the Wilderness Society and Hells Canyon Preservation Council in the case. "Western Watersheds Project hopes that Congress will learn from this decision that attempts like this to micromanage federal land management agencies can and will backfire."

The agency in 2010 announced it would reduce sheep grazing on the forest by roughly 70 percent in order to minimize contact between the wild and domesticated animals. While the agency had implemented most of the reductions, it said in March that Simpson's rider required it to abandon the rest of the plan (E&ENews PM, March 5).

The environmental groups filed suit a month later, arguing that the forest had violated its own forest plan and warning that contact between the species has caused significant die-offs in wild herds (E&ENews PM, April 9).

"Not only is this interpretation contrary to the plain language of the rider, it puts the imperiled Hells Canyon and native Salmon River Canyon bighorn sheep populations at risk after the Forest Service spent hundreds of thousands of hours and dollars on a peer-reviewed scientific analysis aimed at protecting these populations," the groups told the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho.

Craig Gehrke, the Wilderness Society's Idaho director, earlier this week said an agency document he obtained through an information request suggests on-the-ground staff at the Payette National Forest had recommended that the sheep separations continue, but staff were apparently overruled by higher orders.

According to the agency document, Soulen Livestock Co. is the only permittee that would have faced further reductions in 2012.

At issue is what Congress meant when it passed language in the fiscal 2012 omnibus spending bill stating that the Forest Service shall not implement any additional grazing reductions "in excess of the management restrictions that existed on July 1, 2011."

The Payette National Forest in summer 2010 signed a record of decision amending its forest plan that called for an annual reduction of grazing over each of the next three years.

Although it implemented the first phase in 2011 -- reducing the amount of suitable grazing lands from about 100,000 acres to roughly 55,000 acres -- Forest Supervisor Keith Lannom said he would no longer implement the final two phases, which would have reduced suitable acreage by more than 16,000 additional acres.

That is the course of action Simpson intended when he wrote the language, he told Greenwire earlier this year, citing concerns that more ranchers could be driven out of business.