|
|
|
 |
FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
|
|
|
|
Posted on 10/08/2002 6:25:09 AM PDT by madfly
While Congress debates legislation to speed up thinning of fire-prone forests, officials who oversee the U.S. Forest Service and other federal agencies are crafting administrative changes aimed at conveying portions of President Bush's controversial forest management plan.Some possible changes in regulations could be unveiled this month, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said in a recent telephone interview, including a "categorical exclusion" that would allow "certain categories of relatively minor fuels reduction activities" without an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement.
"And we're working on such a categorical exclusion right now," he said.
Rey oversees the Forest Service and is also working with officials from the Interior Department on the proposals while Congress moves to make separate changes in law aimed at expediting forest thinning.
With a categorical exclusion, officials establish a class of land management projects whose effects are well known to be either minimal, benign or even beneficial in every instance. They're used routinely for prescribed burning. Such projects cannot be appealed, but can be litigated, Rey said, and land managers would be required to issue a public notice for each project.
Rey said there would be limits and "sideboards" but he did not yet know those details. The rule-making proposal will go out for public comment through a Federal Register notice, probably at the end of October, he said.
Rey also expects next month the development of a proposed model environmental assessment for other "minor fuel reduction activities, to give our people in the field a template they can use in doing in fuel reduction processes that reduces the size of the paperwork."
Environmental assessments, Rey said, are becoming "too large" and "ponderous."
"An EA should be a relatively straight-forward discussion of the environmental effects of an activity ending with the conclusion . . . but it ought to be something we can say in 20 to 25 pages as opposed to 200 to 250 pages," Rey said.
Bush also directed the secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to streamline endangered species consultation, and review their administrative appeals processes, "to streamline those and make them more interactive rather than adversarial," Rey said. That directive is on a slower track, he said.
Possible considerations include shortening the time-line for turning around decisions on appeals, adding a "pre-appeal opportunity," so those opposed to a thinning project and the federal land managers proposing the work can work out their differences before they enter a formal appeals process.
"We might evaluate whether we want to continue to offer automatic stays of the activity every time someone files an appeal, which we do now," Rey said.
An automatic stay puts logging and other projects on hold when they are appealed, until an appeals officer decides through a formal process whether the project should be allowed.
The possible rule changes are in response to President Bush's Healthy Forests initiative, announced this summer in Oregon amid one of the West's worst fire seasons. The administration says 190 million acres are at risk of catastrophic wildfires.
"There are some things we can do administratively, because we have the authority to do it - the president has challenged us and directed us," Rey said. "There are others we can't do under existing authorities, and that's why the president requested Congress to provide that authority."
In addition to directing the departments that oversee the Forest Service and other agencies to streamline procedures, Bush asked Congress to pass legislation enacting sweeping changes in forest management. The wildfire plan seeks to make it easier to thin forests at risk of catastrophic wildfires, but that has re-ignited an old controversy in the West over cutting trees and fire. Environmentalists have called Bush's plan an attack on long-standing environmental safeguards, pitched to the public and Congress during a heated and emotional fire season.
But supporters, including Western politicians like Gov. Judy Martz, have praised the president's plan, say it will allow needed forest management to prevent severe wildfires.
Congress has been locked in a stalemate over wildfire bills introduced in response to Bush's plan, including an amendment by senators Larry Craig and Pete Domenici, a bill Rey said is among those that most resembles the president's plan and among those he supports.
The bill, for instance, would exclude thinning projects on up to 10 million acres of forests most at risk of severe blazes from environmental review and citizen appeals and would prevent critics from blocking the work with court injunctions.
At the Wilderness Society in Bozeman, Bob Ekey said he hadn't seen enough specifics offered yet on what is being done internally through the Agriculture and Interior departments, but categorical exclusions might be fine, he said, as long as they are not too large and focus work near communities. Ekey addressed most of his concerns toward some congressional attempts to change forest policies, namely the Craig-Domenici amendment.
"That bill slams the door on the public's face," Ekey said Thursday.
The Wilderness Society doesn't oppose thinning near communities, Ekey said earlier this week, and was on board with the Western governors' 10-year wildfire strategy, but he fears the administration will try to cut larger trees in the back-country and prevent citizens participation.
"What happens in this debate is that people wind up confusing fuel reduction and thinning and logging," he said.
A Craig spokesman has said the amendment is narrowed in scope and relies on a collaborative process, noting it applies to 10 million acres when arguably much more forest is at risk of wildfire.
Other bills addressing the forest health plan include the Dashle-Bingaman amendment, which would focus 70 percent of the money on thinning projects within a half-mile of communities; Sen. Max Baucus has also proposed a wildfire bill he has described as a compromise plan, involving expedited thinning but retaining citizen appeals.
Most recently, this week a bi-partisan House bill was unveiled amid Congressional gridlock. Among its provisions, the McInnis-Miller amendment calls for giving federal agencies the flexibility to streamline environmental analysis for thinning in high risk, high priority forests where homes and communities are at risk; requires 70 percent of new spending on forest thinning be directed towards reducing fire risk near communities; and preserves the rights of individuals to appeal and litigate controversial land management decisions, the lawmakers said.
The bill drew fire Thursday from the Wilderness Society, which, in a statement, said the bill would severely restrict administrative and judicial review.
Reporter Buddy Smith can be reached at 363-3300 or bsmith@ravallinews.com.
So that means it is good! Especially coming from people who lose sleep over "the difference between thinning and logging"! If there wasn't proof in terms of life and property loss these people would never concede to "thinning" near a community. That's how all those homes were lost to begin with. I am still waiting for the day that these people are held responsible for their destructive behavior and their cult!
|
|
|
|
|
FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
|
|
|
|
Never happen. That's a promise. If Clinton wasn't tossed out what makes you think any of his actions will be punished?
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.