06/09/02 -- Bush Administration Threatens Roadless Forests

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FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY

Bush Administration Threatens Roadless Forests

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Portal

http://forests.org/america/ -- US Forest Conservation

News & Information

June 9, 2002

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org

The Bush administration is intensifying its pursuit of policies that

threaten America's forest ecosystems and environmental sustainability.

Under the Bush administration the Forest Service is "systematically

and subtly" weakening environmental protection standards designed to

preserve and maintain the ecological integrity of public lands. In

particular, the Bush presidency continues to callously disregard

overwhelming popular support for strictly protecting America's last

roadless forest wildernesses on its public lands.

Earning his apt moniker, the "Toxic Texan" continues to impede the

popular Clinton era Roadless Area Conservation Rule, while finding

numerous manners to whittle away at existing roadless forest

protections. The Bush administration has repeatedly delayed the

effective date of the rule, which would protect some 60 million

roadless acres of national forests from logging, mining and other

industrial activities. The administration has deliberately offered

weak arguments in defense of the rule during court challenges by the

timber industry and the states of Alaska and Idaho.

The Toxic Texan's efforts to throw open America's last great forest

wildernesses to commercial development by his energy and timber

industry cronies is indefensible, and along with regressive and

obstructionist climate change policy, threatens national and global

ecological security.

Forests.org joins with national groups in demanding an end to

commercial logging on federal lands. Forests.org has worked for years

to highlight the importance of large, contiguous forest ecosystems for

regional and global ecological sustainability. America's large,

roadless forests sustain its water, air, climate, species, natural

plant communities and generally are a requirement for its ecological

sustainability.

President Bush fails to realize there are many requirements for

security - the most fundamental of which is having a healthy

environment in which to live. Below are several good articles which

summarize the current state of the American forest conservation

movement and highlight swelling activist and Congressional efforts to

stop Toxic Texan induced ecocide.

g.b

For LOTS more information see:

http://forests.org/cgi-

bin/texis.exe/webinator/forestmain?query=bush+roadless

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ITEM #1

Title: Defending the Wild Forests

Date: June 5, 2002

ONE OF THE MOST significant accomplishments of the Clinton

administration was the shift in focus of the U.S. Forest Service from

extracting resources from the national forests to managing those lands

for broader benefits, including environmental and recreational values.

That long-overdue change found its ultimate expression in the

"roadless rule," which barred new road-building in 58.5 million acres

of untouched national forest land, protecting those wild areas from

future incursions. On one level, the rule was a practical response to

a management problem: The Forest Service has an $8 billion maintenance

backlog on existing roads, and one way to improve care of the existing

system is to stop expanding it. More important, though, the rule drew

a bright line between the forest lands already opened to development

and those that remain unspoiled, aiming to protect the wild areas for

future generations.

For the past year, the rule has been in limbo. It has been the subject

of court challenges, including one Idaho case, now being appealed by

environmental groups, in which a federal judge held that the process

by which the rule was drafted failed to meet legal requirements. The

Bush administration, which pledged to uphold the roadless measure, is

crafting its own version of the policy but has issued interim

directives that advocates say chip away at its protections. Proposed

timber contracts and oil and gas leases that could threaten roadless

areas are under consideration in national forests ranging from

Colorado to California.

Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey says that no timber sales have

been completed that would not have been allowed under the Clinton

policy, and that fears about future incursions into roadless areas are

premature. He says the Forest Service is committed to producing a

roadless rule that will stand up to legal challenge. But some members

of Congress, concerned about the administration's direction and its

failure to strongly defend the roadless policy in court, aren't

waiting. Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) are

set to introduce a bill that would turn the original Clinton rule into

law. The measure has attracted 172 cosponsors, a reflection of the

strong public support for the roads ban, and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-

Wash.) is preparing a companion measure in the Senate. Congress is

right to put on the pressure. The values to be protected outweigh the

worth of possible timber harvests or energy extraction. It's time to

finish the job of putting these lands off limits.

ITEM #2

Title: Activists Attack Industry Friendly Forest Policies

http://ens.lycos.com/

Date: June 7, 2002

WASHINGTON, DC, June 6, 2002 (ENS) - Environmental groups launched

protests in Washington DC and Montana today to draw attention to the

impacts of President George W. Bush's energy and environmental

policies on national forest lands. The groups have targeted former

timber industry lobbyist Mark Rey, the Department of Agriculture's

under secretary for natural resources and environment.

More than 65 people gathered outside the office of Mark Rey in

Washington DC today, chanting slogans such as "Stop the lies - save

our forests." The leaders of environmental groups including American

Lands, the National Forest Protection Alliance, Sierra Club and the

Wilderness Society used a megaphone to deliver their message to Rey:

end plans for logging and mining on pristine national forest lands.

The groups blame Rey, a former lobbyist for the timber industry, for

many Bush administration policies that emphasize resource extraction

over ecosystem protection. Today's protests in the nation's capitol

and at Forest Service offices in western hotspots like Montana

represent "a first shot across the bow" in a new battle to protect the

nation's wild places, said Tom Weis, executive director of the

National Forest Protection Alliance.

"With President Bush's 'Hatchet Man' in charge of the Forest Service,

our forests have never been so endangered," Weis said. "This is a

classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse. Mark Rey's agenda for

logging, drilling and grazing our national forests stands in contrast

to the views of the majority of Americans who want to see national

forests protected and restored."

Environmental groups argue that the under the Bush administration and

Mark Rey, the Forest Service is "systematically and subtly" weakening

environmental protection standards designed to preserve and maintain

the ecological integrity of public lands. Among the policy decisions

and proposals that the groups say reveal the administration's pro-

industry agenda are its refusal to implement the Clinton era Roadless

Area Conservation Rule.

The Bush administration has repeatedly delayed the effective date of

the rule, which would protect some 60 million roadless acres of

national forests from logging, mining and other industrial activities.

Critics argue that the administration has also deliberately offered

weak arguments in defense of the rule during court challenges by the

timber industry and the states of Alaska and Idaho.

The Forest Service under Rey has also misappropriated federal funds to

support commercial logging, the conservation groups charge. The agency

has used National Fire Plan restoration funds to conduct post-fire

salvage logging, thinning and other commercial timber sales -

including $1.8 million in restoration funds used to support logging in

Montana's Bitterroot National Forest.

After the devastating wildfires of 2000, the Bush administration

seized the opportunity to promote increased logging as a way to reduce

wildfire risk, the groups say. Most recently, Rey proposed creating so

called charter forests, which would turn responsibility for managing

certain federal lands over to local, state and corporate interests by

creating private trusts that are mandated to turn a profit.

The proposal was included in the Bush administration's fiscal year

2003 Forest Service budget.

Environmental groups say Rey's history with the timber industry

explains his support for such industry friendly proposals. From 1976

to 1994, Rey served in a variety of positions promoting the timber

industry through the American Forest and Paper Association, American

Forest Resource Alliance, and National Forest Products Association.

"Sadly, it doesn't require a lot of scrutiny to see through the smoke

screen of the Bush/Rey Forest Service's version of environmental

'protection,'" said Sherman Bamford with The Ecology Center in

Missoula, Montana. "With former timber industry lobbyist Mark Rey

running the show, the cutting of trees, grazing of cows and drilling

for oil, gas and other minerals is taking precedence over the

protection of clean air, clean water and wildlife habitat."

Today, Missoula's National Forest Protection Alliance - a coalition of

133 grassroots forest protection groups nationwide - held a noontime

demonstration outside of Mark Rey's Washington, DC office. Early this

morning, an activist group called Wild Rockies Earth First! (WREF!)

began a vigil at the Forest Service's Region One Headquarters in

Missoula, including a tree sit by volunteer Rebecca Smith.

"I'm here because the forests deserve better than deforestation and

exploitation," said Smith. "Nature is not ours to destroy."

Smith is suspended on a platform in a tree next to the Region One

Headquarters. The activists have vowed to maintain their vigil through

Saturday.

"Those of us who care about public lands in Montana know Mark Rey

well," noted Matthew Koehler with the Native Forest Network in

Missoula. "Make no mistake: while the Bush Administration carefully

greenwashes its anti-environmental image, Mark Rey and his friends in

the logging, mining, oil and gas and motorized recreation industry are

poised to exploit our national forests."

A number of bills now before Congress would reduce industries' impacts

on U.S. forest lands. On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of House

members introduced the Roadless Area Conservation Act, which would

implement the Clinton era ban on roadbuilding and associated

activities in roadless areas of national forests.

Last year, Representative Cynthia McKinney, a Georgia Democrat,

introduced the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act, a bill

to phase out commercial logging in all national forests and wildlife

refuges, and on lands managed by the National Park Service and Bureau

of Land Management - virtually all federal lands.

"This Administration's callous disregard for these natural treasures

demonstrates precisely the need to permanently protect our national

forests from commercial logging," McKinney said today.

ITEM #3

Title: Lawmakers offer bipartisan bill to protect US forests

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewshome.cfm

Date: June 7, 2002

Byline: Christopher Doering

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of lawmakers this week said Congress

would overwhelmingly pass new legislation banning road construction in

millions of acres of national forests, although they doubted the bill

would be supported by Bush administration.

The bill would require the federal government to honor a Clinton-era

plan to restrict the development of most roads on nearly 60 million

acres (24 million hectares) of U.S. forest land.

Under the plan, pristine forest lands could only be disturbed if

natural disasters such as fires threaten area residents and wildlife.

The legislation has already attracted broad support in the Republican-

led House. More than 170 lawmakers, including 17 Republicans, back the

plan.

"If we have that vote, we will win it and send it to the president for

his signature," said Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, has said she will soon

introduce similar legislation in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Signed just days before Clinton left office, the rule dealt a serious

blow to U.S. timber, mining and oil companies, which cannot move in

heavy equipment or remove resources without roads.

The Bush administration has given conflicting signals, saying it would

move forward with the plan to ban new roads in forests but also modify

the rule to allow local input so changes are made on a forest-by-

forest basis.

Mark Rey, U.S. Agriculture Department undersecretary for natural

resources, told a house panel in May that the Forest Service will

issue proposed rule changes in "late fall" of this year. The U.S.

Forest Service is part of the USDA.

Bush's environmental policy has been criticized by environmental

groups for catering to big businesses while failing to protect forest

land from development.

"We'd like the president to join rather than get in the way of that

rule," said Jay Islee, a Washington Democrat who co-sponsored the bill

with New York Republican Sherwood Boehlert.

"But we have to make sure to protect these forests no matter which way

the wind blows in the White House," Islee said, adding that opposition

from the administration "is a possibility."

More than two million letters and faxes have been received by the USDA

supporting the road ban, the largest outpouring of comments on a

federal environmental measure.

"Today shows that Congress is really working to represent the wishes

of the American people," said Tiernan Sittenfeld, spokeswoman for the

U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

The Bush administration has blamed the delays and much of the

controversy in the rule on the Clinton administration for poor

environmental planning.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge in Boise, Idaho, blocked

the Bush administration from carrying out rule, calling the

administration's proposal to modify the rule a "Band Aid approach."

The case was appealed by environmental groups and is now before a

federal appeals court in San Francisco.

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