Nation IN BRIEF : THE NORTHWEST : Federal Court Backs Clinton Logging Plan

The Clinton administration’s compromise plan to manage 24 million acres of federal land in Washington state, Oregon and Northern California was upheld by a federal appeals court against challenges by both environmentalists and loggers. The government adequately considered the need to preserve habitat for the Northern spotted owl and other rare species as well as timber production, said the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The plan, OKd by President Clinton in 1993, allows some logging to resume in Northwest forests, lifting a court ban.