Judge clears confusion over White House Christmas tree

Published 9:00 pm Friday, October 21, 2005

WASHINGTON – The Christmas tree legal battle appears to be over. The 2005 Capitol Holiday Tree, a beautiful 80-foot Engelmann spruce now in a Santa Fe, N.M., national forest, may be cut down after all, a federal judge has decreed.

Forest Service officials had read an earlier ruling by the judge, James Singleton, to require public comment periods – and potentially lengthy delays – not just for major commercial activities but for hunting, fishing or even cutting down a single tree. Such a delay might have meant there would be no tree to light on Dec. 8.

Environmentalists, calling that interpretation a “scare tactic,” got a clarification from Singleton.