Bush to ease US logging rules, citing fire danger
Date: 23-Aug-02
Country: USA
Author: Adam Entous
Bush's critics said the move showed contempt for the environment and would amount to a windfall for the timber industry.
The White House called it proactive forest management. By reducing the density of trees, the administration hopes to prevent devastating wildfires like the one that swept through Squires Peak near Medford, Oregon.
Bush will get an update on the 471,000-acre (190,614-hectare) Biscuit Fire, the largest in Oregon's modern history, and meet with firefighters who battled the Squires blaze that burned more than 2,800 acres (1,133 hectares) of forest and cost more than $2 million to suppress.
The White House called Squires - home to the threatened spotted owl and more than 3 million board-feet of commercial timber - a case study in how legal and regulatory hurdles have undercut forest safety. It said it took six years of analysis, 830 pages of documentation, several court appeals and two lawsuits before fire-prevention work was allowed to begin.
Bush will propose removing such regulatory red tape and reducing environmental reviews, arguing lives are at stake.
So far this year, wildfires in Oregon and elsewhere have scorched more than 5.9 million acres (2.4 million hectares) of forest land - an area the size of New Hampshire and twice the annual average.
In all, they have destroyed more than 2,000 buildings, prompted the evacuation of tens of thousands, and caused the deaths of 20 firefighters.
Unless changes are made, administration officials warned conditions could get worse.
The White House estimated that 190 million acres (77 million hectares) of federal forests and range lands in the lower 48 states face "high risks of catastrophic fire" due to drought and other adverse conditions.
Many ponderosa pine forests are 15 times more dense than they were a century ago. Where 25 to 35 trees once grew on each acre (0.4 hectares), now more than 500 trees do, posing a threat should lightning strike or a campfire spread out of control, officials said.
Environmental groups countered that efforts to thin the forests were an attempt to remove older trees that are coveted by large timber companies.
William Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society, blasted Bush for an "irresponsible anti-environmental agenda."
"The truth is that waiving environmental laws will not protect homes and lives from wildfire - history and science clearly demonstrate that clearing fuels away from the immediate area around homes is the best protection," Meadows said.
The White House said Bush would propose reducing the number of "overlapping" environmental reviews and "needless administrative obstacles" that delay timber projects.
He will also ask the U.S. Congress to let agencies enter into long-term "stewardship" contracts with the private sector, nonprofit groups and local communities. Such contracts allow contractors to keep wood products in exchange for thinning trees and brush and removing dead wood.
Administration officials and some lawmakers have complained the National Environmental Policy Act, a 30-year-old law that governs how the federal government assesses forest management, allows cases to be tied up in court for years.
Bush was to afterward begin a fund-raising swing through Oregon and California and stop briefly in New Mexico before returning to his Crawford, Texas, ranch on Saturday.