Court cites Dr Seuss's The Lorax in rebuke to US Forest Service

Federal court in Virginia says officials were trusted to 'speak for the trees' as it tosses out pipeline permit

A federal court in the US has cited the classic Dr Seuss children's book The Lorax as it lambasted the US Forest Service for granting an energy company permission to build a natural gas pipeline across two national forests.

"We trust the United States Forest Service to 'speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues'," the three-judge panel of the fourth US circuit court of appeals in Virginia wrote this week as it threw out the permit.