Federal court knocks down NM resolution on forest lands

A federal ruling in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico has ruled that an Otero County resolution authorizing them to remove trees from the Lincoln National Forest without their consent is unconstitutional because it violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution according to Chief U.S. District Judge Christina Armijo.

The decision was invalidated by the federal court because it was ruled that Congress, not the state or the county, has authority to control federal lands.

County Commission Chairman Ronny Rardin said the County does not have plans to move forward at this time until they discuss the matter during their executive session Oct. 8.

“We will know after the Oct. 8 meeting. My plan was from the beginning to take this to the U.S. Supreme Court. We knew the liberal courts here would vote against us,” Rardin said. “I don’t have a clue what Susan and Janet plan on doing until we speak at the meeting.”

County Commissioner Susan Flores said she hasn't to an attorney about it yet because the county still needs to hire an in-house attorney.

“I think we have to discuss it first in an executive session because it is a litigation, my opinion doesn’t do much good until we can discuss it,” Flores said. “I would rather wait until we have a meeting and find out what exactly this means to us instead of me trying to interpret it as a lay person. I would rather have an attorney go through it with me.”

County Commissioner Janet White was not available for comment. The Lincoln National Forest and Congressman Steve Pearce declined to comment at this time as well until he has a chance to look over the 66-page federal court ruling that was handed down Wednesday.

In 2001 New Mexico passed Senate Bill 1 to allow counties to manage national forest lands under certain circumstances that U.S. Forest Service personnel couldn't handle. 

When Otero County passed a resolution in 2011 to do just that, the Forest Service filed a lawsuit to stop the action.

The Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division and the U.S. Attorney's office for the District of New Mexico, on behalf of the USDA Forest Service, filed the complaint on February 2012 asking for a declaration from the court on whether Senate Bill 1 and an Otero County resolution were pre-empted by federal law and, therefore, unconstitutional.

The court went on to find that the Otero County resolution and New Mexico statute N.M.S.A. 4-36-11 was in “direct conflict” with federal law, including Forest Service regulations prohibiting the cutting and removal of trees on national forest lands without Forest Service authorization.  It also held that the resolution and statute were inconsistent with several federal statutes by which Congress has delegated the authority to manage national forests to the Forest Service, not the State or the County.

Flores said the reason for the resolution was because the Forest Service had failed to address the conditions that created a state of emergency in and surrounding national forests in New Mexico that was caused by the Cerro Grande fire that burned hundreds of homes in Los Alamos.

“We declared it was a state of emergency and that’s what that resolution was about, we had the big fires so we wanted to be able to go in and start cutting down trees,” she said. “It was important to help the well-being of our citizens and that’s why we did the resolution and that’s when they sued us.”

Both Flores and Rardin plan on having the county appeal the decision, but will make a final decision on Oct. 8 during their executive session meeting. It is not clear if the State plans to appeal at this time.