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Bush administration takes up review of landmark environmental law

By Matthew Daly, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is reviewing a landmark environmental law both reviled and praised because it requires lengthy studies before foresters cut a tree or developers start to dig.

White House officials say they want to modernize the 32-year-old law they blame for bureaucratic gridlock, but environmentalists fear it's a move to roll back crucial protections.

"Given this administration's past record on the environment, it's hard to imagine they are up to any good," said Maria Weidner of Earthjustice, an environmental law firm and advocacy group.

At issue is the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Signed by President Nixon in 1970, the law requires developers, loggers and others to describe in detail the impact a proposed project will have on the environment and come up with measures to minimize them.

A typical environmental impact statement includes detailed analysis by several federal agencies and extensive public comment.

Environmentalists consider it a fundamental law and rely on it to limit development on public land and block projects that threaten endangered species, including the spotted owl and steelhead trout.

But critics say the law has burgeoned into a swamp of regulations and logistical hoops that stall business projects for years at a time.

"The simple fact is, (NEPA) has been used and abused by those who want to obstruct activities" such as logging in national forests, said Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group.

"As more and more agencies can weigh in and make stipulations and requirements, the process in many cases has become much more costly and has proved to be an obstacle to development," said Darren McKinney, spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers.

The review was launched last month by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which says the law needs to be updated after three decades of being essentially unchanged. A nine-member task force is accepting public comment through Sept. 23 and expects to issue a report by early next year.

"We're not out to gut" the law, task force director Horst Greczmiel said. "We're out there to try to make it better. In common parlance, we want to cut the fat if there's fat out there and we want to beef up the beef."

Environmentalists are not convinced. They point to the president's Aug. 22 proposal to step up logging in national forests to prevent wildfires as an example of the kind of changes the administration wants to pursue under a watered-down NEPA. A key element of the plan would make it more difficult for environmentalists to appeal federal decisions that allow logging.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., pushed a similar measure in July to exempt some logging in his home state from the law to prevent wildfires. Republicans are seizing on Daschle's maneuver to underscore the need for change. (snip)

But some Western lawmakers call the review long overdue.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said he hopes the task force "will bring some sanity and common sense back to the process." Environmental review has "come to represent nothing but gridlock in the West," he added. (snip)

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"The simple fact is, (NEPA) has been used and abused by those who want to obstruct activities" such as logging in national forests, said Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group.

"As more and more agencies can weigh in and make stipulations and requirements, the process in many cases has become much more costly and has proved to be an obstacle to development," said Darren McKinney, spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers.

The review was launched last month by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which says the law needs to be updated after three decades of being essentially unchanged. A nine-member task force is accepting public comment through Sept. 23 and expects to issue a report by early next year.

"We're not out to gut" the law, task force director Horst Greczmiel said. "We're out there to try to make it better. In common parlance, we want to cut the fat if there's fat out there and we want to beef up the beef."