U.S. Forest Service posted a temporary final rule in the Federal Register last week that will rollback regulation to protect endangered fish and wildlife from logging and development in national forests. The new rule gives U.S. Forest Service officials flexibility in how they calculate the risk to fish and wildlife populations when reviewing road-building, logging or other proposals. The rule allows officials to waive the 22-year-old Reagan-era standard that requires that forests maintain "viable populations" of fish and wildlife. Though environmental groups believe that the new rule will have a substantive impact on their ability to protect U.S. endangered species, a quarter of which live in our national forests, the groups will not be given the opportunity to comment officially. The rule has been classified as merely interpretive of an earlier standard, and therefore is not open to public comment. Read the Washington Post article.