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STATEMENT OF NATIONAL FOREST POLICY SPECIALIST SEAN COSGROVE ON THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S LATEST ATTEMPT TO INCREASE LOGGING IN AMERICA’S WILD FORESTS "Earlier this week, the Bush administration sent another message that it intends to remove protections for the last remaining wild areas of our National Forests. Buried in the arcane 'semi-annual regulatory agenda' published in the Federal Register is a notice that the Bush administration will launch a convoluted process to allow individual Governors to decide whether federal lands located in their states should receive federal protection from commercial logging and logging road construction. Without a national policy against road construction, forest management would revert to individual forest plans that in many cases would allow roads and other development on most of the 58 million acres currently protected by the roadless rule. "This announcement is one more plank in the Bush administration’s platform of basing National Forest management on the desires of timber company executives. On the day before Christmas Eve, the Bush administration exempted Alaska’s National Forests from the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, despite receiving nearly 250,000 public comments opposing the plan. The Forest Service has also begun the process of making the exemption permanent and extending it to include the Chugach National Forest, the second largest National Forest, where over 5 million acres are currently protected. "In determining its budget priorities, the administration replaced promised funding for honest fuel reduction with a $9 million increase in funding for commercial timber sales and an extra $5 million for planning timber sales in the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska. The administration has also proposed the largest timber sale in modern history in the Siskiyou Wild Rivers region in southern Oregon at a potential cost to taxpayers of $100 million. Whenever faced with a management decision, the Bush administration has rarely missed a chance to give the timber industry whatever it requests." |
