Bush's message to Oregon: His forest plan equals jobs

Bush issued a stinging critique of the forest policies that led to this year's record fire season -- policies expected to cost taxpayers more than $1.5 billion for fire suppression. Nationwide, nearly 6 million acres, an area the size of New Hampshire, have burned.

He said red tape, regulations and "endless litigation" have become the tools for delaying worthwhile thinning projects. His plan would allow emergency thinning in the highest-risk areas while speeding up environmental assessments that cause delays.

Current policy "doesn't work" "The forest policy of our government is misguided policy -- it doesn't work," Bush said, speaking from a podium backed by bleachers filled with yellow-shirted firefighters. A made-to-order grove of potted trees and firs stood in the background. "We need to thin," he said. "We need to make our forests healthy by using some common sense."

As news of the Bush plan leaked out this week, environmentalists said it appeared the White House was trying to placate the timber industry, which has long complained about legal challenges and environmental rules that get in the way of logging.

Bush did not say which environmental rules might be suspended under an emergency declaration. But he cited legislation recently authored by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., that exempted some timber harvests in his state from appeals.

Daschle, a potential challenger to Bush in 2004, has said that industry and environmental groups had agreed on the plan. But Bush seemed to relish bringing it up.

"My view is, if it's good enough for that part of South Dakota, it's good enough for Oregon," Bush said.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., joined the president on his visit to the burned area and sat behind the president as he spoke at the fairgrounds. He said he told Bush that the Daschle option, which applied to about 700 acres, should not be uniformly applied to millions of acres of Western forests.

Wyden said he would lead the fight against any attempt to "close the courtroom" door from citizen appeals.

"Clearly there are promising ideas here," he said. "But I've got to see specifics before I weigh in."

Environmentalists, gathered outside security gates at the fairgrounds, said it is the specifics that they fear.

"We're not hearing any detail, and that's what's worrying us," said Dominick DellaSala of the World Wildlife Fund's Klamath-Siskiyou office. "We fear they're working behind the scenes to gut provisions of environmental laws."

Smell of smoke greets president Bush landed in Medford aboard Air Force One about 13 minutes behind schedule at 10:08 a.m. Thursday and was greeted with the acrid smell of smoke that drifted into Medford from two smaller wildfires burning in Douglas County to the north.

Dressed in khakis, cowboy boots and an open-collared shirt, he bounded from the plane and immediately went to a half-hour briefing on the Biscuit fire -- the largest in Oregon history -- which was expected to be about two-thirds contained by the end of the day.

After the briefing, he took off in a 24-vehicle caravan to visit the site of the 2,800-acre Squire Peak fire near Jacksonville that had threatened hundreds of homes before being extinguished in late July.

The fire burned over an area that had previously been thinned, and forestry officials said it showed how thinning and removal of forest underbrush can cut the intensity of later fires and make it easier for firefighters to protect property nearby.

Joining Bush on the tour were Govs. John Kitzhaber of Oregon, Judy Martz of Montana and Jane Hull of Arizona. Also on the trip were Wyden, Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., whose congressional district includes Medford.

Kitzhaber offers criticism, praise Kitzhaber did not stay for Bush's speech. But the governor said he later told Bush during the forest tour that exempting forest health programs from environmental appeals as called for by the Daschle amendment could "repolarize" the debate over forests.

He also said it would be a "dramatic departure" from the 10-year forest fire management plan that Veneman and Norton signed with the Western Governor's Association this spring. That plan calls for spending $35 billion through 2011 on fire suppression, preparedness, community assistance and hazardous fuels removal.

"It's very clear in the agreement the administration signed (that) we're going to do something that meets environmental laws," Kitzhaber said, who with Idaho Gov. Dick Kempthorne negotiated for the governors on the fire plan.

"If the plan is to finance forest health by going in and taking trees for which there is no ecological justification, you re-create the polarization and the gridlock that's kept us from managing these forests responsibly in the past," Kitzhaber said.

At the same time, Kitzhaber praised Bush "for coming out here and elevating this debate to the presidential level. I think that's enormously important."

Smith said Bush's plan could easily incorporate a proposal by him and a dozen other senators to waive environmental rules and allow emergency thinning on about 23 million acres of federal lands at the highest risk of fires.

"Clearly we are not protecting forests with the status quo. It's all going up in smoke," Smith said. "Wise people understand that fuel loading helps neither fish nor fowl."

Bush also brought up the Northwest Forest Plan, a landmark 1994 agreement negotiated under the Clinton administration that called for annual harvest of 1 billion board feet of timber, a level that has never been achieved.

The president called it a "well thought out plan" that could create 100,000 jobs through "sustainable timber harvesting on a small portion of the forest."

An outline of his forest policy calls for "removing needless administrative obstacles and providing authority to allow timber projects to proceed without delay."

White House organizers salted the crowd at Thursday's rally with scores of firefighters. About 6,900 had worked on the Biscuit fire at its peak last week.

Allen Mitchell, a Bureau of Land Management fuels management specialist, got off the Biscuit fire lines Wednesday. Wearing a yellow firefighter's shirt, gray with smoke and sweat, Mitchell said he's spent 19 years fighting fires.

"Conditions get worse every year," Mitchell said. "You don't think they possibly can, but they do."

Tom Detzel: 503-221-8431; tomdetzel@news.oregonian.com Michelle Cole: 503-294-5143; michellecole@news.oregonian.com

GWB Is The Man !!

Stop the attacks by the wacko, extreme left-wing, lunatic fringe, dirt worshipping Green Jihadist, enviro-nazis terrorist's and their toadies in the media, on our Freedoms !!

Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!

Molon Labe !!

If the Dems tack to the left, we move right in and gobble up most of the center.

You mean "we move left" and gobble up most of the center.

Another Bushbot running loose on the internet...

That's at the heart of it really. A few of these green monsters devote themselves to their cause as a religion, still others view it as a tool to crumble the cornerstone of any free society, which is private ownership of lands. Socialists realize that they needed a new warmer, fuzzier face to put on their political ambitions in this country after McCarthy. Environmentalism, Social Justice, Economic Justice...all the varying faces of Fascistic Socialism.

I agree 100%! The first thing we have to do is rid the state of Democrats. The core of the Democratic Party is now the radical left. We can not undo the damage they've done til we take Congress, our governorships and state legislatures away from them.

We conservatives may differ on many things, but we all agree that we can never again sit on our hands and allow creeps like Bill Clinton and Marxists like Hillary near our White House.

In Oregon, we can't afford to allow the Democrats to continue regulating our businesses to death, keeping our unemployment among the highest in the nation.

Bush's message to Oregon: His forest plan equals jobs
Jobs?!!
We don't need no stinking jobs!!!

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.