For Immediate Release:
June 24th, 2026
Contacts:
Nick Cady, Legal Director, Cascadia Wildlands, (314) 482 3746
Susan Jane M. Brown, Principal & Chief Legal Counsel, Silvix Resources
Aloha Trout Timber Sale issued without valid management plan, violating key procedural law; precedent sows doubt about thousands of acres of timber harvest, leases, and permits across West
Portland, OR — Cascadia Wildlands, represented by Silvix Resources, filed a lawsuit alleging that a federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) timber sale in Western Oregon, the Aloha Trout Forest Management Project, was issued without a valid underlying resource management plan, violating the Administrative Procedure Act.
The lawsuit asserts that the applicable resource management plan is likewise invalid based on federal lawmakers’ recent use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to disapprove land use plans in other Western states opening the door to today’s legal action.
The CRA, signed into law in 1996, requires that federal agencies, including the BLM, submit all federal rules to Congress after they are finalized, allowing legislators the opportunity to disapprove them by simple majority vote. In 2025, congressional Republicans escalated the use of the law to overturn public land management plans for the first time (management plans have not traditionally been considered “rules” and were never previously subjected to disapproval under the CRA).
Conservation groups and legal experts warned about the precedent set by this approach: If land management plans are subject to the CRA, then no land management plan adopted after 1996 (the date of the enactment of the CRA) is in effect unless and until it has been submitted to Congress. Today’s suit claims that because the Northwestern and Coastal Oregon Resource Management Plan was never submitted to Congress for approval after it was finalized in 2016, it has never gone into effect, and timber sale contracts flowing from that RMP (including the Aloha Trout Forest Management Project) are similarly void and not in effect.
Two Western Oregon BLM RMPs – the Northwestern and Coastal Oregon Resource Management Plan and the Southern Oregon Resource Management Plan – cover 2.6 million acres of productive timberland managed by the BLM. Since 2016, the BLM has authorized the harvest of more than 2.2 billion board feet of timber on these lands across 449 timber sales with a cumulative value of more than $577 million.
Recent congressional CRA action casts doubt on the viability of future land management decisions, opening the door to similar challenges of BLM timber sales, oil and gas leases, and permits across the country.
Spokespeople from Cascadia Wildlands and Silvix Resources made the following statements about the lawsuit:
Nick Cady, attorney, Cascadia Wildlands:
“The area covered by the Northwestern and Coastal Oregon Resource Management Plan includes forests that are a cradle of biodiversity and wellspring of life for nearby communities. The Aloha Trout Forest Management Project threatens these wildlands and the iconic wildlife that live here. Congress’ irresponsible use of the CRA has invalidated this exploitive use of our public forests.”
Susan Jane Brown, attorney, Silvix Resources:
“Members of Congress ignored repeated warnings about the consequences of using the CRA to dismantle land use plans and the uncertainty it would create for communities across the country. By disapproving other resource management plans in 2025 and 2026, Congress signaled that all land management plans not submitted to Congress are vulnerable and invalid. As such, we have asked the court to follow Congress’ lead and set aside BLM’s invalid Northwestern and Coastal Oregon Resource Management Plan and the Aloha Trout Forest Management Project that relies on that RMP for its legitimacy. Congress undermined management of public lands around the country by using the CRA in this way, and we are simply following the path established by Congress in order to protect the priceless old-growth forests, waterways, and wildlife of Western Oregon.”
