Western Senators Threaten a Return to
'Logging Without Laws' Salvage Rider

By Chad Hanson (August 7, 2002)

When Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) and other pro-logging Western politicians passed the logging without laws "Salvage Rider" in the summer of 1995, many environmental advocates vowed that it would never be allowed again. The 1995 Rider suspended all federal environmental laws to allow unrestrained logging of healthy, green old growth forests on federal lands under the guise of "forest health" and "fire risk reduction". This, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that logging increases severe fire conditions.

Now it's happening again.

Led by Senator Craig, on August 1st the logging industry's footsoldiers in Congress threatened a new appropriations "rider" that would suspend environmental laws supposedly to expedite "fuels reduction" projects on national forests. What they failed to mention is the fact that projects to reduce flammable undergrowth on federal lands are already exempt under current environmental laws. There are no public comments and no appeals.

The fact is that environmentalists never appeal projects to reduce excessive underbrush and, in fact, consistently encourage the Forest Service to conduct more, especially adjacent to rural homes. So why then do Larry Craig and his cohorts seek to overturn environmental laws? The answer is simple: they and their timber industry campaign contributors want to log the remaining mature and old growth forests on our public lands.

If they get their way, medium and large trees will be felled at a shocking rate with no restrictions, laws, or public involvement. Disturbingly, the government's own science warns that such an approach will increase, not decrease, severe fire behavior because removal of these larger trees reduces forest canopy cover, creating hotter, drier conditions. Essentially, logging companies and their political apologists seek to remove the larger, more fire-resistant trees and leave in their wake the smaller, more combustible material and "slash debris"--limbs and twigs from felled trees.

The logging industry claims that the sale of medium and large trees should occur to pay for reduction of underbrush. However, they fail to mention that the Forest Service's documents show that logging costs about as much as brush reduction, and is sometimes more expensive. In addition, because logging reduces shade cover and increases sunlight exposure, it speeds the growth of highly ignitable weeds and shrubs. As a result, every few years this brush must be reduced at significant expense. This effort and expense can be avoided if the Forest Service simply focuses on reducing underbrush in the first place, instead of logging.

What is needed is an increase in funding for brush reduction within and adjacent to residential communities, as the National Fire Plan recommends. The Forest Service's own science shows that if simple steps are taken to reduce the flammability of homes and their immediate surroundings within 200 feet, they will be protected even from severe fires. Wood shingle roofs should be replaced with fire-retardant material and brush should be cleared near houses.

The Forest Service can and should play a key role in providing assistance to rural homeowners to help them protect their residences. Amazingly, however, the press releases issued by Senator Craig and company urge that scarce federal funds should instead be spent on logging projects in remote areas. Logging companies, of course, have no interest in clearing underbrush near houses. They want economically-valuable large trees from mature forests, and their political allies are eager to obey.

The great tragedy here is that if these pro-logging politicians get their way and suspend environmental laws, the only projects that will be insulated and expedited are those that remove large trees and increase fire risk. Funds will be diverted from brush reduction to large commercial logging projects. Instead of "thinning" underbrush, these projects deceptively use the term "thinning" for commercial logging of medium and large trees. The safety of rural homes will be ignored in favor of short-term timber industry profits and lawless logging.

Decades of intensive logging on our national forests has not reduced severe fire behavior, it has created it. The largest and most extreme fires are overwhelmingly occurring in areas that have been previously logged. It's time to stop logging on our national forests.

Chad Hanson is the executive director of the John Muir Project and is a national director of the Sierra Club. He resides in Cedar Ridge in the Sierra Nevada range and can be reached at chadhanson@juno.com, or visit www.johnmuirproject.org.