July 29, 2016
CapitalPress.com
11
In defense of resource industries
litigation has also had a more
gradual effect: Federal agencies
have become more gun-shy
about making decisions.
For example, because of
pressure from environmental-
ists, the government is often
persuaded to scale back wa-
tershed-scale thinning projects
until they’re a fraction of their
original scope, Horngren said.
“The agencies continue to
be scared of litigation and the
environmental groups,” he said.
Scott Horngren
helps cultivate
next generation of
resource lawyers
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Precedents matter
Important legal opinions
can arise from lawsuits over
relatively minor projects that
affect endangered species and
public lands — major subjects
of litigation in the West.
For this reason, Horngren
sees certain battles as worth-
while even if they don’t involve
enormous timber tracts or graz-
ing allotments, since losing one
ight can have a domino effect.
“That precedent is going to
hurt you in the next case,” he
said.
The general thrust of major
U.S. environmental statutes is
set by Congress, and their en-
forcement is carried out by fed-
eral agencies, but key questions
about how these laws should
function are often answered by
judges.
“It’s up to the courts to de-
cide what (statutes) mean in
the absence of clear direction,”
Horngren said. “Those inter-
pretations are a huge part of
natural resource law.”
In nearly three decades of
legal practice, Horngren has
represented private companies
— often when they’re caught in
the middle of disputes between
environmentalists and the gov-
ernment — and inluenced fed-
eral policy as an attorney for
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Scott Horngren, an attorney with the Western Resources Legal
Center, has spent decades defending against environmentalist
lawsuits and is now training the next crop of attorneys to represent
the natural resources industry.
the American Forest Resource
Council, a nonproit industry
group.
Now he’s turned his atten-
tion to educating the next crop
of natural resource attorneys
while continuing to litigate cas-
es that impact agriculture, tim-
ber and mining at the Western
Resources Legal Center, which
is afiliated with Lewis & Clark
Law School in Portland.
Unlike most nonproit envi-
ronmental law centers, WRLC
is dedicated to helping natural
resource industries rather than
thwarting them.
The program represents par-
ties in select lawsuits that have
the potential to set legal prece-
dent and provide an educational
experience for law students.
Horngren is a natural it as
a teacher-litigator, as he’s well-
versed in a variety of indus-
tries affected by environmental
laws, said Caroline Lobdell, ex-
ecutive director of WRLC.
“We can’t let all that talent
just walk out the door,” she
said. “He’s the true deinition
of a natural resources lawyer.”
‘Wise sage’
New lawyers have long
turned to Horngren for advice
as a “wise sage” of natural re-
source law, said Tim Bernasek,
chair of the agriculture, food
and natural resources team at
the Dunn Carney law irm.
After retiring from private
practice, Horngren is still con-
tributing to the ield instead of
devoting himself to golf or oth-
er pastimes, he said.
“It’s a testament to his char-
acter and devotion to this in-
dustry,” Bernasek said. “There
are not a lot of people who are
willing to do that.”
During his career, Horngren
has noticed subtle shifts in the
effect of environmental litiga-
tion on resource industries.
While the public’s attention
is often drawn to pivotal cases,
the profusion of environmental
The legal landscape facing
natural resource users isn’t all
doom and gloom. Horngren
said the 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals, where many West-
ern environmental cases end
up, has grown more even-hand-
ed in recent years.
In the early days of Horn-
gren’s career, the 9th Circuit
was “stacked” with judges who
weren’t sympathetic to federal
management policies, he said.
More recent 9th Circuit appoin-
tees, though, are less biased in
favor of environmental plaintiffs.
A key 2008 opinion by a
broad “en banc” panel of 9th
Circuit judges, known as Lands
Council v. McNair, has also
helped level the playing ield.
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Work in the Northwest’s
rangelands and forests has been
reshaped in recent decades by the
environmental laws that ranchers
and loggers must navigate.
The changes are often pro-
pelled by conlicts decided in
federal court, an arena where
attorney Scott Horngren has
made his mark as a defender of
natural resource industries.
Horngren represented log-
ging companies and local gov-
ernments in that case, which
pitted environmentalists against
a 3,800-acre selective logging
project in the Idaho Panhandle
National Forests.
In its ruling resolving the
dispute, the 9th Circuit over-
turned one of its previous deci-
sions for misconstruing federal
forest management law.
This story irst appeared
Feb. 19, 2016.
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