Posted on 05/06/2005 6:47:05 AM PDT by calcowgirl
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed Thursday that the Bush administration's attempt to open a third of national forests to logging, mining and development will not diminish protections for California's remote forestlands.
Announcing an agreement with the U.S. Forest Service to protect about 4.4 million California acres left vulnerable to construction under the new Bush administration rules, Schwarzenegger said those largely undeveloped areas will remain untouched.
"I am committed to protecting the vibrant health and sustainable future of our forests," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "Roadless areas in California will remain roadless."
Schwarzenegger's announcement came as the Bush administration completed the reversal of a Clinton-era environmental policy. The new rules effectively end automatic protections for 58.5 million acres of national forestland, including nearly 1 million combined acres in the Angeles, Los Padres and San Bernardino national forests.
Under the new rules, governors have 18 months to submit petitions to either stop or allow road building and other construction on land where it will now be permitted.
Schwarzenegger's announcement cheered up several California environmental activists, who said they had doubted the governor would protect national forestland in the state.
Activists said that without Schwarzenegger's protection, Los Padres National Forest could be vulnerable to oil or gas drilling, estimating about 100,000 roadless acres in the forest have oil and gas reserve potential.
Meanwhile, land management plans for the Los Padres, Angeles and San Bernardino national forests are all being revised, which might have had new implications for undeveloped acres.
"I'm very happy to hear that Governor Schwarzenegger intends to keep roadless areas roadless in California," said Don Bremmer, a volunteer Sierra Club activist in the Angeles chapter.
Ryan Henson, policy director for the California Wilderness Coalition, called the governor's announcement "unexpected" and said he was pleasantly surprised.
Others, however, questioned Schwarzenegger's ability to withstand pressure from logging and mining interests.
State Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, introduced legislation Thursday that would require the governor to consult the state Legislature and other stakeholders before making any decisions about California's 4.4 million roadless acres.
Levine's spokeswoman Crystal Strait said Schwarzenegger's endorsement of the bill would show that his pledge is more than just words.
"Unfortunately, this is one of those things where only time will tell," she said of Schwarzenegger's forest assurances, adding, "He also made a commitment to education last year and we all saw what happened to that."
What Bush did was make it easier for governors to do what they want with the forests in their own states.
W did not MANDATE cutting down trees...
It is about time that Bush did something to reverse the economic devastation Clinton and his enviornmental pals did to Wahington, Oregon and Ca resource land. Oregon and Washington have had the largest unemployment in the nation for the last 4 or 5 years. It has been horrible for thousands of families, as the greenies thought saving trees for burning later was better than financial and emotional tolls on umemployed families.
This would be funny if it weren't so tragic. A bunch of liberal commies were in my office yesterday telling me the state's financial woes are due to high energy costs because we depend too much on foreign oil.
----
Spoken like a true GReen..
Uh, Gub , the vibrant health and sustainable fututre of the forests ain't gonna happen with nudniks like you in a position to spread your tired EnviroKennedy agenda.
Who needs roads when ya fly around on Airstreams and helicopters?
This article really ticked me off regarding the Roadless Rule.
My Letter to News 10:
I read with utter dismay your story titled “Schwarzenegger Says State's Wilderness Areas Will Stay That Way”. It is obvious that whoever wrote this story, and those that approved it, either don’t have a clue about what roadless areas are and how they are affected by this policy, or you intentionally spun this story for some sort of political purpose to the point that much of the article is at a minimum very misleading, if not flat out false.
Roadless areas do not include ANY designated wilderness areas, and the currently designated wilderness areas and wilderness study areas (WSA) are completely unaffected by the Bush Roadless Rule. The inaccuracies begin in the very first paragraph with the statement “millions of acres of protected wilderness will remain that way despite a White House plan to open wilderness to road building”. Not true. There are currently around 106 million acres of designated wilderness in the United States. The state of California contains the second most acres of wilderness - second only to Alaska - of which your state has 14,085,258 million acres of “protected wilderness” with many millions of more acres proposed for wilderness. Not one acre of these 106 million acres is affected by this new rule, but of course you already knew that, you just wanted to give your viewers the illusion that these wilderness areas are now threatened.
At least I am happy to see that Arnold’s remarks appear to be much more accurate than your news channels statements. You quote him as stating “... roadless areas in California will remain roadless”. Notice that he does not use the word wilderness in his statement? Good for Arnold!
None of the 58.5 million acres designated as roadless under Clinton’s original rule were legally allowed to be considered protected wilderness. That is in fact why Judge Brimmer overturned Clinton’s 2001 rule. Some of these areas were recommended for wilderness and were referred to as WSA or Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE II) areas. Nothing in the Bush rule prevents these areas from being permanently designated as wilderness if Congress decides to do so, but neither President Clinton nor President Bush have the authority to designate them as wilderness. That authority rests solely in the hands of Congress.
In the future, please do us all a favor and label your political spin stories such as this as either opinions or editorials, and let’s leave the news to factual information without the spin.
The story that is full of it:
http://www.news10.net/storyfull1.asp?id=10725
Schwarzenegger Says State's Wilderness Areas Will Stay That Way
The governor is assuring Californians that millions of acres of protected wilderness will remain that way despite a White House plan to open wilderness to road building was announced earlier today.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a statement proclaiming, "California's forests are one of our state's most treasured and valued resources. I am committed to protecting the vibrant health and sustainable future of our forests. In keeping with that commitment and the assurances we have from the U.S. Forest Service, roadless areas in California will remain roadless."
The state's Resources Agency has been working with the federal Department of Agriculture and its Forest Service for a roadless rule specific to California since October.
The Bush administration has authorized 38 states, including California, to develop their own wilderness use plans. The governors of those states would have 18 months to determine what to do with each state's portion of 24.2 million acres of roadless wilderness. Governors would have the option of either submitting petitions to the Forest Service for approval or doing nothing, in which case the protected wilderness would automatically be opened to road construction.
The Bush administration plan undos a law former President Bill Clinton signed shortly before leaving office in January 2001. The Roadless Area Conservation Rule applied to 58.5 million acres, most of it in western states and Alaska.
Since then, the law has been challenged in several federal courts. On Wednesday, the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver heard arguments for and against a 2003 decision by a federal court in Wyoming that overturned the 2001 law.
Under current local forest management plans, 34.3 million acres of protected woodlands are already eligible to be opened to road construction. The new plan could potentially allow roads to be built in another 24.2 million acres of wilderness.
The Department of Agriculture said states' use petitions should consider protection of public health and safety, reduction of wildfire risks, conservation of wildlife habitat, maintainence of dams and other infrastructure, and access to private property.
Environmentalists fear opening the wilderness to road building will lead to logging, mining, oil drilling and other development. They say today's rule announcement is designed to circumvent the 10th District Court's eventual ruling.
There are 18 national forests in California, comprising 20,698,000 acres. Roughly a quarter of that land, 4,416,000 acres, is protected wilderness under the 2001 act.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.