Conflict looms over timber

Seattle Post-Intelligencer ^ | 01/03/04 | Robert McClure

[Holly_P]

Pending changes to the federal plan on logging in the Northwest's national forests are expected to draw lawsuits

It's a new year and new battles are on the horizon between environmentalists and the Bush administration over federal forests in the Pacific Northwest -- but the theme is continuing conflict.

Central to the clash are changes the Bush administration is making this year in the Northwest Forest Plan, the document hammered out under President Clinton in 1994 to end the standoff over logging federal old-growth forests.

Government officials are expected this month and next to finalize rule changes that will make it easier to carry out timber sales without explicitly protecting salmon, and without extensive surveys to discover whether logging would endanger more than 300 hard-to-find slugs, snails, lichens and other species.

Later in the year, officials are expected to finalize reviews of whether the spotted owl and another rare bird, the marbled murrelet, should continue to be protected under the Endangered Species Act.

"It's an ugly Christmas and early New Year's list out there that seems to be on the horizon from the Bush administration, and I doubt that I know of everything that's on deck," said Bill Arthur, the Sierra Club's Seattle-based deputy national field director.

"It's our sense that the Bush administration, knowing that 2004 is upon them, is trying to get as many things out the door as they can to weaken the environmental agenda, but buy some distance in time between when they do the deed and Nov. 2," Election Day.

Bush administration officials, though, point out that while the Northwest Forest Plan has helped protect what remains of old-growth forests and spotted owls, it hasn't accomplished another of its goals: a steady -- albeit reduced -- stream of timber from parts of national forests that are considered OK to log.

More than four-fifths of the 24 million acres in Northwest national forests are off-limits to timbering, they point out. The changes they propose would affect only the remainder.

"We've met the protection pieces of the Northwest Forest Plan, but the production piece we've never been able to meet. It was a compromise plan," said Rex Holloway, a Forest Service spokesman.

Holloway previously was in charge of timber sales for a national forest unit on the Olympic Peninsula at the height of the old-growth cutting in the late 1980s and early '90s.

Regarding the forthcoming legal challenges by environmentalists, he said: "I look at where we were 10 years ago even, and I look at how much of the old-growth is being set aside and I'm just scratching my head. ... It was determined that we needed to make significant changes, and we did that."

The timber industry is happy to be getting some consideration from the Bush administration but isn't getting its hopes up. Environmentalists are prolific filers of lawsuits, they point out.

"Ultimately, I am hopeful that we will see better implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan, but this next year is going to be a lot of litigation, in my view," said Chris West, vice president of the Portland-based American Forest Resource Council.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

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[snopercod]

"It's our sense that the Bush administration, knowing that 2004 is upon them, is trying to get as many things out the door as they can to weaken the environmental agenda...

Can anybody name ONE THING that Bush has done to "weaken the environmental agenda"?

The leftists spew this propaganda as if it were factual.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!

[88keys]

"We've met the protection pieces of the Northwest Forest Plan, but the production piece we've never been able to meet. It was a compromise plan," said Rex Holloway, a Forest Service spokesman.

Holloway previously was in charge of timber sales for a national forest unit on the Olympic Peninsula at the height of the old-growth cutting in the late 1980s and early '90s.

Regarding the forthcoming legal challenges by environmentalists, he said: "I look at where we were 10 years ago even, and I look at how much of the old-growth is being set aside and I'm just scratching my head...

Some "compromise"...this is obviously the enviro-wackos having their cake, and eating it too, when it comes to enforcement of the "agreement" ...

I hope the Bush administration will stand up to these people, not to mention pushing a little harder for "tort reform"!!

(I'll write a letter...you all should too...couldn't hurt!)

[Beck_isright]

"Can anybody name ONE THING that Bush has done to "weaken the environmental agenda"?"

Yes, he's stopping massive forest fires by trimming away dead trees and brush. This will prevent these fires from expanding and killing those evil humans, thus weakening the Sierra Communists and other left wingnuts. Thank God W has changed the policies at the Dept. of Interior.

[WFTR]

The sadder reality is that President Bush will not receive any political benefit from doing the right thing. Increasing timber production may save a few jobs in the timber industry, but those jobs don't compare to the number of votes controlled by pencil-pushers in the cities who couldn't care less about jobs in the timber industry. As far as the pencil-pushers are concerned, the timber workers can give up the nice pay and benefits of their current jobs and become telemarketers.

Resolving for 2004
Bill

[meenie]

Bush could strike a compromise and turn the forests over to the states as they see fit. I question whether the Federales have any Constitutional jurisdiction over federal lands within a state other than for roads, and military bases. Clinton didn't have any problem reserving lands for national monuments without congressional action. Just reserve a monument for each state and let them take care of it.

[Libertina]

said Bill Arthur, the Sierra Club's Seattle-based deputy national field director
This "club" has way too much money.

[goody2shooz]

The voters holding those timber-related jobs vote Democrat. I know. I live in a town literally dependent upon timber harvesting. A great many are out of work and stupidly continue to vote for Democrats.

[snopercod]

Actually, the U.S. Forest Service is part of the Dept. of Agriculture. (I only know that because my brother works for them.)

And the "Health Forest Initiative" has not yet been implemented. It's a start, though, if it ever happens.

[Clinging Bitterly]

>> A great many are out of work and stupidly continue to vote for Democrats.

Amazing isn't it?

I make my living selling iron to people who make trees into stumps and fields into parking lots. At my company, most of the folks will vote Republican, but then it's nonunion.

Our company management did support vehicle and fuel tax increases last year, but the money is earmarked for construction projects, so the company will see some benefit from it. Still, I disagreed. I say do the construction projects, and other things that are needed, with the money that is available, and just stop doing the things that are not needed. As for the useless eaters in state government that would have to go to in order to accommodate this common sense approach, I care no more about them than they do about me.

On the forest initiative, I am firmly in the school that says the "national forest land", as long as we're going to have it, is best managed for timber production. In that capacity, it is not a liability. It is all going to either burn or be harvested, so we may as well not squander that economic value that is there.

That's not to say, though, that I think for a minute that the huge percentage of the real estate in this state that is under federal control ought to be, because I don't.

Dave in Eugene

[Issaquahking]

"Clubbed" is how I feel everytime these commie's steal more from us!

[Libertina]

Hi IK! Nice to ssee you on line...Yes, these people's actions need to be contained.