San Francisco Examiner Editorial on Logging Roads
12/29/97
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Headline: San Francisco Examiner Editorial on Logging Roads
Source: The San Francisco Examiner
Date: 12/29/97
Copyright: The Chronicle Publishing Company
EDITORIAL -- The Enormous Toll Of Logging Roads
THE FEDERAL government's approach to subsidizing logging roads is rooted in
the past, back to the days when its goals were to promote settlement and to
seed the economy in the West by exploiting its natural resources.
There was a time when such policies might have made sense.
They do not anymore.
This continuation of an archaic approach to bankrolling the construction of
logging roads is costing taxpayers many millions of dollars every year and is
wreaking havoc on the environment.
Consider the numbers. There are now about 380,000 miles of logging roads in
national forests today -- eight times the length of the interstate highway
system; enough to circle the globe 15 times. A White House study of 1995
timber sales showed that, when road subsidies are included, the U.S. spent
$234 million more than it took in for its national-forest logging program.
The defense of such subsidies is that these logging roads often double as fire
trails and access for hikers, hunters, mountain bikers and other
recreationalists. But the benefits must be weighed against the damage to the
forests caused by an acceleration of logging and other human activity in
pristine areas.
The current road-subsidy system plainly encourages logging companies to build
roads. Here's how it works: The companies get monetary credits for building
roads to provide access to timber. The credits are based on the Forest
Service's estimate of the cost of building the road, plus a profit margin of
10 to 15 percent. Companies never have to report the actual cost of building
the road. The timber industry's eagerness to build roads should be a signal to
Congress that this program is overly generous. But Congress this year narrowly
rejected a proposal to significantly pare back the road-subsidy program. Not
surprisingly, a recently released Common Cause study showed that timber
industry groups gave more than $8 million in political contributions since
1991.
Congress and the Clinton
ut back this form of corporate
welfare and protect the environment by:
-- Overhauling the road-credit program to establish a better level of
accountability for its fiscal and environmental costs.
-- Putting a moratorium on road construction and logging in roadless areas of
1,000 acres or more until the government makes a science-based assessment of
its policies. These undisturbed areas provide critical habitat to wildlife,
yet the Forest Service has been allowing timber companies to keep rolling into
new terrain -- while reaping public subsidies for doing so. When roads start
cutting through the trees, a forest begins to lose its value to sustain
wildlife, to filter water, to protect against landslides and erosion. Roadless
areas now represent just a fifth or less of national forest land in California
-- and the threat to roadless areas is particularly acute with proposals for
major timber sales in Idaho, Colorado and Wyoming.
It's time to treat these areas as a resource to preserve. They are still
valuable and productive without logging crews and equipment rumbling through
them.
Government waste is intolerable in any circumstance, but when a giveaway
program is for the destruction of our national forests the policy becomes
unconscionable.