Today this was the editorial column that was below the fold in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. the column does a much better job than I can in explaining the threat to the forests that the Bush logging plan presents.
If you want to read the original or to read the above the fold column, follow this link:
http://www.startribune.com/
Tom
Editorial: Bush and forests / A policy built on fallacies
Published Aug 27, 2002
ED27
The first fallacy in President Bush's new forest management policy is that it's
necessary to restore woodland health. The second is that it constitutes a fresh
response to a bad fire season.
In fact, national forest managers had an ambitious plan for thinning trees and
reducing underbrush before Bush took office. It was inspired by the bad fires
of summer 2000, and it drew wide if cautious backing from environmentalists
as well as proponents of more aggressive forest management. This spring it
won support from a panel of Western governors and Bush aides.
It wasn't sufficient, however, for the timber industry, which continues to seek
greater access to federal lands under any available pretense. A few years ago,
salvage logging was the justification; now it's fire prevention. It is their
lobbying, not a bad fire season, to which the Bush plan's parentage may be
traced.
There is little argument that some clearing of overgrowth can restore the
national forests to a more natural state. But the work will be quite expensive,
and Bush proposes to reduce the cost to taxpayers by letting timber
companies take merchantable trees along with unsell able scrub.
That is not in itself a bad idea. But Bush overreaches in two critical respects:
first, by giving too much decisionmaking power to timber companies under
"stewardship contracts"; second, by dramatically limiting the 30-year-old right
of citizen or environmental groups to challenge timber sales in court.
The administration says thinning efforts are being held up by environmentalists
who appeal every sale. This is not so. While antilogging groups scrutinize
thinning projects with great care, federal data show that only a tiny handful
have been challenged. In any case, the law already permits environmental
reviews to be expedited or suspended in true emergencies.
If the president wants to move faster on fire, there are more productive things
his administration could do.
The U.S. Forest Service needs more money for its thinning programs and less
for firefighting, a balance the president can address through his budgeting
authority. In addition, the service needs to focus more of its thinning work in
the so-called wildland/urban interface, less in the backcountry.
Another major advance can be accomplished at almost no taxpayer cost.
Homeowners in the interface need more encouragement -- if not a firm
requirement -- to take minimal steps to reduce the fire vulnerability of their
own properties. As an advocate of personal responsibility, President Bush
must surely be attuned to the illogic of letting firefighting efforts be driven by
property owners who build where they oughtn't, then sit on their hands, then
expect federal help when flames are approaching.
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