Forest Service Halts Special Timber Sales Program
12/13/96
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Forest Service halts special timber sales program
Copyright 1996 by Reuters
12/13/96
WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The Clinton administration Friday suspended timber
sales from national forests to temper fears that too many dead and dying
trees would be sold to loggers before a special salvage program expires in
two weeks.
"There's been a lot of public criticism of the program and some were
fostering this perception that there was going to be some kind of Christmas
rush to get sales out.
"Well this should allay peoples' fears about the Christmas rush,"
Agriculture Undersecretary James Lyons said in a telephone interview.
The emergency salvage rider was a controversial measure Congress passed in
1995 to speed up logging of dead and dying trees in national forests by
eliminating many environmental reviews and chances for public involvement.
Clinton signed the measure, which was part of a budget bill, but later said
he regretted it.
The Clinton administration in a report released last week said areas of
national forests with "virtually all live trees" were logged under the
rider because of spotty enforcement of environmental rules.
With the new decision the Forest Service said it will halt sales of timber
that have not been advertised. The timber industry said the move will block
the logging of about 100 million board feet worth of timber.
As of the end of November, 4.1 billion board feet of timber had been
offered under the emergency provision.
The timber industry said the program was necessary to reduce fires and
improve forest health, but environmentalists said it was a guise to give
the timber industry access to more trees with minimal interference.
"With this decision, the administration has appeased a handful of
extremists at the expense of responsible management of public forests," W.
Henson Moore, president of the American Forest and Paper Association, said
in a statement.
Environmentalists praised the move, even though they said it came too late.
"By suspending timber sales until Jan1, 1997, the administration put an end
to one of the worst environmental policies ever passed by Congress," Bill
Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society, said in a statement.