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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina s congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Myorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Wyoming’s Roadless Rule Challenge Stopped at Supreme Court

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Tuesday, October 2, 2012   

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Wyoming's push to have the federal roadless rule overturned has ended at the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court has refused to take the case, which contended that prohibiting road-building in national forest back-country was creating wilderness. That is a job only Congress can do.

Joel Webster, the director of the Center for Western Lands at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, says the decision has been a long time coming.

"This really resolves almost a decade's worth of legal uncertainty towards the management of these back-country lands."

The state of Wyoming joined the Colorado Mining Association in pushing the case to the Supreme Court, citing additional concerns that limits on development hurt the timber, mining and drilling industries.

Duane Short, Wild Species Program Director for the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, says the decision is the final nail in the coffin for anti-roadless campaigners. He says it also brings strong public recognition of the benefits of undeveloped back-country forests.

"Roadless areas provide clean water and air, habitat for countless wildlife species, opportunities for recreation and solitude, and also help to moderate our weather."

Joel Webster says it must be remembered that the 2001 rule was based on public input, which was overwhelmingly in favor of keeping these non-roaded areas "as is."

"The decision by the Supreme Court - it really affirms the value of back-country areas for hunting and fishing, and fish and wildlife habitat."

The TRCP and the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance worked to maintain support for the rule over the last ten years. About 3.2 million acres of forest land in Wyoming are categorized as "roadless."




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