Court: Environmental laws violated in Bush administration's 2004 Sierra logging plan

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File: 78-year-old Jack Morgan, wood cutter since retiring, rips a log burned in the massive McNally fire of July 2002 on July 30, 2004 in Sequoia National Forest in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.

Environmental laws were violated in the lead-up to the Bush administration's 2004 decision to expand logging in California's Sierra forests, a federal appeals court says.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled Friday that the U.S. Forest Service failed to include any reference in its public report to the plan's effect on fish.

According to The San Francisco Chronicle, the 2-1 ruling does not require a halt to any tree-cutting activities.

But environmentalists say it will force the Obama administration to take a closer look at the impact of projects in the Sierras on fish and watersheds.

The administration is in the process of revising individual forest plans.

The Forest Service declined to comment.