USDA Broke Law With $2 Million Tongass Grant, Watchdog Finds (1)

The U.S. Forest Service violated the law in issuing a $2 million grant to the state of Alaska to help expedite ending roadless area protections for the Tongass National Forest, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Inspector General found in a report posted Friday.

The USDA in October finalized a plan to exempt the 16.8-million-acre Tongass from the Roadless Rule in order to open many of its remote islands and old-growth trees to new logging and mining and jump-start the lagging economy of southeast Alaska.

Democrats expect the incoming Biden administration to take steps to reverse the plan in President-Elect Joe ...