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A proposal would increase money to prevent wildfires and create a research center in Prineville WASHINGTON -- Timber-state senators filed a written version of their forest-health compromise Wednesday, setting the stage for a showdown with House Republicans who favor stronger language and sparking debate about new protections for old-growth stands. Among other things, the senators, including Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, agreed to spend $760 million a year on fuel-reduction projects, up from $420 million. The bill also would create a research center in Prineville, Ore. The goal of the legislation is ambitious. The senators want to reverse...

PORTLAND - A final Bush administration plan that paves the way for quicker approval of logging and other commercial projects with less environmental review received predictably mixed reactions from Oregon forest groups. The plan, which goes into effect this fall, overhauls the 1976 National Forest Management Act. The new rules give forest managers more discretion to approve logging, mining and other projects without completing lengthy environmental reviews. Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council, said the formal scientific studies - known as environmental impact statements - waste time and money. Forest plans need to be made on...

SALEM - Grant Wheeler wants to add a second shift to his Reedsport hardwood sawmill, his Westwood Lumber Co. remanufacturing plant in Junction City and his planing mill in Saginaw. But a shortage of the alder sawlogs that Wheeler converts into Fender guitar bodies, Purdy paintbrush blanks and parts for kitchen cabinets will keep employment at the three facilities hovering at 135 workers. At least in the short term. "If I had more logs, I would add more employees," Wheeler said. "The market is there." To get those logs, Wheeler and other independent sawmill operators are taking the unusual route...

'All environmental laws, standards and guidelines, regulations, conservation strategies are suspended during fire-suppression incidents.' – Tim IngalsbeeOn the afternoon of Aug. 1, Nancy Lyford and her husband, Gordon, heard on their scanner that the bulldozers were coming. The couple left their home in the southern Oregon town of O'Brien to watch the fire crews gouge out a new fire road across their neighbor's meadow and their own. The gouge was intended as a last line of defense against a growing wildfire. If the fire line at the top of the mountain didn't stop the flames, and if efforts to burn...

SALEM -- The Bureau of Land Management wants to log the bulk of the Douglas fir on 28 acres of public land near Sheridan to open up the property to Oregon white oak, a native species that has disappeared in much of the state. The bureau hopes to remove 80 percent to 90 percent of the fir, which is crowding and shading the oak, ecologist Hugh Snook said. Foresters would either plant additional oak or cut struggling oak trees and allow the remaining stumps to sprout. The site is about 16 miles west of Salem, on Beck Road north of...

South's forests grow in private hands By ALLEN BREEDThe Associated Press   Recommend this story to others.   LOUISBURG, N.C. - Jim Speed still gets up every morning, climbs into his pickup and drives his 300 acres of timber - a legacy that's been in his family since before the Civil War. At 87, Speed is twice the age of most of his oldest trees, but that doesn't make him impatient. He points to a stand of 60-foot loblolly pines that would make good saw logs today, but they'll stay there a while longer. Growing trees is a business to...