For more information:

Matthew Koehler
Native Forest Network
(406) 542-7343
koehler@wildrockies.org

"The proposal from the Bush Administration to 'streamline' environmental laws and exempt Forest Service projects from judicial review should be viewed as nothing less than a transparent attempt to increase commercial logging in our national forests - which has been this administration's stated intention since day one."

"While this administration claims that fuel-reduction projects are being stalled by appeals and lawsuits, the General Accounting Office (GAO) recently investigated all Forest Service fuel-reduction projects for fiscal year 2001 and found that of the 1,671 projects, not one had been litigated and only 1% of the projects had been appealed."

"If the Bush Administration is serious about protect homes and communities from wildfires, they will heed the advice of the Forest Service's own experts who have found that a home's ability to survive a wildfire depends almost entirely on its location, its condition and its surroundings within 200 feet. In short, experts tell us that wildfire protection begins at home, not with more commercial logging in our national forests."

"The problem with allowing loggers to cut commercially valuable trees is that science has been telling us for years that commercial logging - because it targets the large, fire resistant trees - has increased, not decreased, fire risk and severity. Even the National Fire Plan warns the Forest Service that the agency's wildland fire policy 'should not rely on commercial logging or new road building to reduce fire risks' because 'The removal of large, merchantable trees from forests does not reduce fire risk and may, in fact, increase such risk.'" (SOURCE: Dept. of Agriculture and Dept. of Interior, Report to the President [September 2000]).

"Currently, virtually every single commercial logging project that the Forest Service is offering is couched in terms of "reducing fuels" or "restoring forest health." However, what we are finding on the ground is that these projects are nothing more than the same old commercial logging projects that focus on cutting down the larger trees."

"The Bush Administration plan is similar to the 1995 logging without laws Salvage Rider, which suspended environmental laws and banned pubic participation to allow commercial logging for 'forest health' reasons. However, what we witnessed under the Salvage Rider was ancient old-growth forests and roadless areas falling to the chainsaw.

"The Washington Post called the 1995 Salvage Rider, 'arguably the worst piece of public lands legislation ever' for good reason. In fact, enough trees were cut from our national forests during the Salvage Rider to fill 800,000 log trucks lined up for over 6,800 miles. Unfortunately, if the Bush Administration gets their way, our public forests will suffer the same consequences, only this time under the guise of 'fuel-reduction.'" (SOURCE: Washington Post, Sept. 10, 1996)

"The American people should not lose sight of the fact that the person pulling all of the strings behind the scenes is none other than former logging industry lobbyist Mark Rey. Rey was hand-picked by the Bush Administration to oversee the management of our national forests as Bush's Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment. Rey spent 20 years as a lobbyists for the logging industry and is largely credited as the author of the 1995 Salvage Rider - which suspended environmental laws and banned public appeals to dramatically increase logging on national forests." Click here for more information on Mark Rey.

To: Interested Persons
From: Mike Anderson, The Wilderness Society
Re: Bush Administration's "Healthy Forests Initiative"
Date: August 22, 2002

Following is a quick analysis of the Bush Administration's "Healthy Forests Initiative", as described in a briefing paper distributed in advance of President Bush's speech in Medford, Oregon, on August 22. This analysis focuses on the proposed legislative and regulatory actions that appear to be the centerpiece of the Initiative.

In essence, the Bush Administration is proposing three types of actions:

1. Administrative guidance and procedures designed to cut red tape and "improve regulatory processes" for fuels treatments and restoration projects. The briefing paper does not provide enough detail to evaluate the impacts of these administrative actions on environmental protection and public involvement.
   
   
2. Legislation to curtail or eliminate administrative appeals and lawsuits challenging fuels treatments and restoration projects. This appears to be the most radical and controversial part of the Initiative. The briefing paper suggests that the Bush Administration wishes to exempt some or all fuel reduction and restoration projects nationwide from judicial review, as Congress recently did in order to implement a revised settlement agreement for portions of the Black Hills National Forest. The impacts of such an exemption would likely be similar to the 1995 Salvage Rider (a.k.a. Logging Without Laws), which effectively barred appeals and lawsuits of salvage timber sales and generated tremendous controversy. Vice President Gore later said that signing the Salvage Rider was the worst decision made by the Clinton Administration during its first term.
   
   The Initiative also proposes legislation to authorize use of long-term "stewardship contracts" for fuels treatments and restoration projects. This is also a controversial proposal because it allows logging companies and the Forest Service to trade "goods for services" - i.e. to cut federal timber in return for reducing fuel loads. A similar provision was considered but dropped from the Farm Bill earlier this summer, due in part to environmental concerns that it would create a perverse incentive for loggers and Forest Service managers to cut bigger and more valuable trees.
   
   
3. Legislation to increase timber sales in the Pacific Northwest by "removing needless administrative obstacles" in the Northwest Forest Plan and by expediting implementation of projects determined to be consistent with the Plan. It is important to note that this part of the Initiative is not limited to fuel reduction and restoration projects. Instead, the primary impact would be to increase logging of old-growth forests in the relatively moist western Cascades, where fuel reduction generally is not a management objective. Environmentalists have been working with Senator Wyden and others to develop legislation that would protect the remaining old-growth forests and encourage ecologically beneficial thinning projects in the Northwest. However, the Healthy Forests Initiative suggests that the Bush Administration is only interested in cutting more of the old growth. Environmentalists almost certainly will strongly oppose this part of the Initiative.

In conclusion, key elements of the Healthy Forests Initiative are likely to be extremely controversial and vehemently opposed by the environmental community. The Initiative is remarkably narrow in its scope: it focuses almost exclusively on reducing "needless red tape and lawsuits" as the key to improving forest health and preventing unnaturally intense wildfires. The Initiative does not even mention the need for additional funding to implement the National Fire Plan; nor does it address many key issues in fire prevention, such as actions to reduce fire risks in the wildland-urban interface.

Thus, from an environmental perspective, the Bush Administration seems to be more interested in overriding environmental laws and eliminating public participation than it is in developing a comprehensive and broadly supported strategy for reducing wildfire risks and restoring healthy forests and rangelands. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration seems to be missing an historic opportunity to forge a public consensus on how to deal with wildfire prevention.