Timber company backs out of controversial road deal with Forest Service.

Last week, ThinkProgress noted that Forest Service chief Mark E. Rey, who is a former lobbyist for the timber industry, was trying to “push through a change in U.S. Forest Service agreements that would make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions.” The last-minute rule change would primarily have benefited Plum Creek Timber, the largest private landowner in the United States. But now the company has decided that it will no longer pursue the changes “given the lack of receptivity” to the idea. Rey claimed the company’s decision was “not good news for the federal government or the public at large.”