In December 2000, the court said in a preliminary ruling the sales were illegal because they violated the Northwest Forest Plan designed by the Clinton administration to maintain and restore salmon habitat.

The Bush administration said last month it will rewrite logging rules for forests in the Pacific Northwest. The latest proposal would overhaul a Clinton plan that protected nearly 24 million acres of forest land in Washington, Oregon and California.

The change means loggers would no longer be required to consider what impact removing trees would have on endangered fish habitat or area species when a timber sale is proposed.

The Bush administration said lawsuits were slowing efforts to thin forests of brush and dead trees, which can serve as fuel in the spread of wildfires.

Environmentalists fear the crux of the plan, to protect local habitat, would be dwarfed by efforts to remove older trees coveted by large timber companies.

The groups added that they will not oppose timber projects that protect salmon and other endangered species.

"The road construction and industrial logging proposed by the government would have pushed endangered salmon closer to extinction," said Dave Werntz with the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance.

"There are timber sales and watershed restoration projects that meet the salmon protection rules, and conservationists and the federal agencies can find common ground on timber sales that follow the Forest Plan and the law," he said.

Green groups scored a rare environmental coup last week when a federal appeals court reinstated a ban blocking road construction on nearly 60 million acres of U.S. forest land, overturning a preliminary injunction obtained by logging interests in May 2001.

The move came just days after the Bush administration proposed relaxing U.S. environmental rules to quicken forest thinning efforts that have long been slowed by lawsuits.