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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
U.S.
Senate Defeats Efforts to Repeal Salvage Logging Law
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
3/18/96
Following
is coverage of a failed attempt to repeal the Salvage
Logging
Laws in the United States, which has increased logging in
national
forests. Once again the hypocrisy of
any U.S. government
condemnation
of developing countries logging is apparent; as the
few
percent of native U.S. forests not under protection already
are
continuing to be logged.
g.b.
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TEXT STARTS HERE:
Subject:
Senate defeats effort to repeal salvage logging law
Thu, 14
Mar 1996
Copyright
1996 by Reuters
WASHINGTON
(Reuter) - The Senate Thursday defeated an effort to
repeal
a controversial law that increased logging in national
forests,
including the cutting of massive, ancient trees of the
Pacific
Northwest.
The
Senate voted 54-42 against a bill sponsored by Democratic Sen.
Patty
Murray of Washington state to suspend cutting of old-growth
trees
that has been forced by the salvage logging law and to
restore
public oversight to harvesting salvage trees on public
land.
Instead
the Senate backed a measure sponsored by Senate
Appropriations
Committee Chairman Mark Hatfield, an Oregon
Republican,
to give the U.S. Forest Service more leeway in
substituting
other timber for the old-growth tree sales or to buy
back
contracts from loggers.
The
measure was included in a sweeping bill the Senate is
considering
to continue funding the federal government once
temporary
funding expires. The funding bill passed by the House
did not
deal with the logging issue.
Hatfield's
legislation makes modest changes in the salvage
logging
rider that was attached to a budget bill and was deemed
by
environmentalists as their major loss of last year.
The
salvage rider forced the government to proceed with sales of
old-growth
timber that had been suspended because of expected harm
to
wildlife, prompting renewed conflict in the Northwest between
loggers
and environmentalists.
It also
called for expedited logging of salvage timber --
dead or
dying trees -- but gave loggers quick access to some
healthy
stands in national forests across the country.
"This
rider may have sped up the flow of timber to mills
marginally
but it also sparked a war in the woods in my state,"
Murray
said.
Backers
of Hatfield's bill said it was needed to allow quick
salvage
logging of dead and dying trees, which rapidly lose
commercial
value. They said Murray's bill could make the
government
liable for hundreds of millions of dollars of sales
under
contract and would cost thousands of timber jobs.
President
Clinton reluctantly signed the salvage rider last year
as part
of a broad budget bill. But he recently said the section
forcing
old-growth timber cutting should be repealed after court
rulings
broaden its application to more old-growth trees under
contract.
Clinton,
in a letter sent from Jerusalem, urged passage of
Murray's
repeal of the timber rider and said environmentally
sound
timber salvage did have a place in forest policy.
"Securing
a steady supply of timber to Northwest mills continues
to be a
priority for me," he wrote Murray. Clinton was in Israel
to show
U.S. support for the country after recent
terrorist
bombings.
The
Wilderness Society said the Hatfield measure would only
extend
and worsen the rider's impact.
"With
the defeat of the Murray amendment, the president now
has one
more reason to veto the spending bill now under
consideration,"
Steve Whitney, the Wilderness Society's
Northwest
Regional director, said in a statement.
But the
Northwest Forestry Association said it was pleased a
majority
of senators "realized the Murray amendment was poor
public
policy that would have caused tremendous economic harm to
families
and communities throughout the Pacific Northwest."
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