Replies

Letter to the editor:

Your July 25 editorial "Chainsaw Tom" reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of my forest management amendment.

First, the amendment implements an agreement negotiated by local stakeholders, including the timber industry and environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society. This agreement not only allows thinning on federal land, it also protects the roadless character of the area and creates 3,600 acres of new wilderness.

Second, my amendment is not "similar" to legislation proposed by Congressman Thune. His proposal did not include the linchpin of my amendment -- a locally negotiated consensus agreement on thinning to prevent forest fires. It simply directed the Forest Service to unilaterally initiate thinning in the Black Hills National Forest, which would generate additional litigation and bring us no closer to our goal of reducing the local fire threat. Moreover, it did not add additional wilderness to the national forest or protect the environmental integrity of the thinned areas, which was essential to securing environmental community support for thinning.

No one should misinterpret the reach of this forest management agreement. It is grounded in the understanding that no special legal protection should be afforded any timber cutting plan that is not endorsed by all local stakeholders and does not preserve the environmental integrity of the affected area.

Litigation and appeals in the Black Hills, like elsewhere in the nation, reflect the lack of trust that exists among all users of the national forests and the Forest Service, and a lack of consensus regarding the goals of national forest management. After years of battling in South Dakota over these issues, the various interested parties worked through their differences and achieved both consensus and trust on a discrete set of forest management issues. The resulting agreement, implemented through my amendment, has cleared the way for thinning to begin and for the expansion of a local wilderness area in my state.

Tom Daschle
Majority Leader
United States Senate

Logging Won't Prevent Fires

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's logging rider for the Black Hills National Forest is a travesty. Instead of focusing on reducing flammable underbrush near homes, Mr. Daschle's rider focuses primarily on the removal of large fire-resistant trees, mostly in remote areas, that are among the least fire-prone in the forest. It's not about protecting people, it's about politics.

A recent analysis found that the great majority of the fires in South Dakota's Black Hills over the past couple of years have occurred in areas that had been intensively logged and roaded. Logging didn't prevent these fires, it made them worse. Likewise, Mr. Daschle's logging rider will exacerbate the problem by removing larger trees and leaving behind smaller, more-flammable material and highly combustible "slash debris" -- limbs and twigs from felled trees. The logging will also reduce the cooling and shading effect that the forest canopy cover provides, creating hotter, drier conditions.

We need to reduce flammable brush near homes. That Sen. Daschle, pressured by GOP Congressman Thune, chose to suspend environmental laws to allow otherwise illegal timber sales reflects very poorly on his judgment.

Chad Hanson
Cedar Ridge, Calif.

"Litigation and appeals in the Black Hills, like elsewhere in the nation, reflect the lack of trust that exists among all users of the national forests and the Forest Service, and a lack of consensus regarding the goals of national forest management.

From the Washington Times - 7/31/02 -

Earlier this year, Mr. Daschle and his wife, Linda, dropped plans to buy property in the Black Hills. The majority leader said he would be working on a solution to the forestry issue and wanted to avoid the appearance of a conflict.

Can Puff buy national forest property?

Tom Daschle's explanation is way too obtuse for the average person to follow. I have kept up with this issue and I don't have a clue what he's talking about.

He must have been feeling the heat to write this and make it public. The issue was actually dying down, now this editorial will revive it again, but apparently, he thought it worth the risk to make his points.

I think this strategy will fail. Not only does it revive the issue again, it reads so Clintonesque--splitting hairs and parsing words.

I think he's in trouble in SD or else he'd just laugh this whole thing off.

So, mr tommy two tongues, the sierra club is now a local stakeholder "in your little mind". I wouldn't trust the sierra club regardless of what they say, and why not you ask. Have they done anything to earn my trust, by attempting to turn the world back into what my forefathers broke their backs overcoming.

I think we all know the answer to that question. Turning more of the bleak hill of SD into wilderness is thought to be a wonderful thing "by the likes of the sierra club", I happen to disagree, but am I considered a local stakeholder? What do you think? And I venture to postulate that I am more of a property owner and more of a taxpayer in SD than many of the sierra club local stakeholders. All 270 members strong in western SD, to quote a recent whine in the letters to the editor by a local stakeholder.

Hopefully the club will continue its policy of terrorism and legal wrangling and really piss off the populace, and to the person unworthy of the title senator, how much of the black hills are you going to give the local stake holders as a carrot. If that is now the way of dealing with those whose policies enable forest fires, I'm not impressed, and you could very well run out of federal forest before you run out of people willing to sit at your table for that kind of compromise.

So, in effect, allowing the clearing of dead timber was a bad idea when Thune was going to do it, because my people would sue. It's a good idea when I do it, because my people wouldn't sue me. That's the lynchpin. It's gone beyond whether Dasshole is liberal or not for me. His arrogance, his willingness to lie at the drop of a hat, his willingness to deceive whenever the need arises makes me just disgusted with this creature. X42 has nothing on Dasshole when it comes to sheer dishonesty.