The Bush administration has dropped its appeal of WELC’s 2007 district court victory that stopped its attempt to weaken the regulations for managing 193 million acres of national forests. The judge agreed with WELC attorney Pete Frost and ruled that Forest Service unlawfully bypassed required public environmental reviews and provisions under the Endangered Species Act in rewriting the regulations.  The judge also stopped implementation of the change that would have made it easier to log, mine and build roads in our nation’s forests and grasslands. We will watch closely, as the Forest Service has begun efforts to develop new (and we anticipate, equally weak) revised rules.