Now Bush Wants to Trash Our National Forests

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Unk's Wild Wild West : One Thread

Published on Thursday, April 26, 2001 in the Washington Post

Going Backwards

White House Seeks to Scuttle Clinton Ban on Logging, Roads

by Eric Pianin The White House has instructed the Justice Department to research ways to scuttle a Clinton administration regulation protecting 60 million acres of national forests from logging and road-building, sources said yesterday. The move is the clearest sign yet that President Bush will oppose the measure.

The administration has until late next week to file a brief with the U.S. District Court in Boise, Idaho, declaring whether it intends to support the U.S. Forest Service regulation that was announced by President Bill Clinton on Jan. 5. It was among scores of Clinton rules and orders that Bush put on hold after taking office and is the subject of a federal suit brought by the timber industry and the states of Idaho, Utah and Alaska.

According to the sources, high-ranking White House policy officials instructed Justice Department lawyers to find a way to set aside the regulation until the administration can produce either a less restrictive proposal or eliminate the rule entirely. The lawyers were asked "to see if they can make this work legally," explained one administration source.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said that "we have not finalized our decision" but that the administration "is committed to providing protection in roadless areas" of national forests.

Kevin Herglotz, a spokesman for the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, said the department was still conferring with industry and environmental groups in trying to reach a final decision. "It's important to note that we are still in the process of listening," he said.

The regulation was one of the most far-reaching of Clinton's environmental initiatives and would protect more than a quarter of federal forests -- including large tracts of Alaska's Tongass National Forest, the largest temperate rain forest in the United States -- from most commercial logging and new road construction.

Environmental groups hailed the rule as a major breakthrough in preserving wilderness covering an area more than seven times the size of Maryland.

However, a timber industry spokesman said the rule would discourage proper forest management needed to avert a repeat of last summer's devastating wildfires in the Northwest. Alaska lawmakers charged that Clinton broke a promise to exclude the Tongass forest from the edict.

Some Bush administration and state officials, as well as the timber industry, contend that Clinton rushed to put in place the regulation before leaving office. Environmental groups note, however, that the Forest Service held extensive public hearings for well over a year on the proposal in which it recorded 1.6 million public comments.

"At the same time they contend the process didn't have enough public input they're working to torpedo the rule in the back room," said Niel Lawrence of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

A suit filed by Boise Cascade Corp. and the states of Idaho, Utah and Alaska charged that the Clinton administration improperly followed procedures in issuing the logging rule. On April 5, the federal judge in the case, Edward Lodge, denied a request by the plaintiffs to issue an injunction to prevent the regulation from taking effect. However, Lodge held his ruling in abeyance until May 4, when the Justice Department is required to file a brief declaring whether it will support the new rule.

Since launching its review, the administration has overturned or revised several Clinton environmental regulations that would have toughened standards for arsenic in drinking water, cracked down on hard rock mining interests and imposing new energy-efficient air conditioner standards.

The president has also abandoned the 1997 global warming protocol negotiatied in Kyoto, Japan, and reneged on a campaign pledge to sharply reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the nation's power plants.

However, in a bid to shore up his environmental credentials, Bush within the past week has announced that the United States will sign a treaty aimed at reducing the release of dangerous chemicals in the environment, pledged to come up with a new rule on arsenic next year that would call for a reduction of at least 60 percent from allowable levels and gave the go-ahead to a ban on recreational snowmobiling in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks in Wyoming.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

-- Dumb Move, Dumbya (his@fraudulency.com), April 26, 2001

Answers

This article fails to mention some very significant facts. This policy was reviewed in more than 600 public hearings held all over the USA, and during the "public comment period" it attracted far more than 1 million public comments - a record number. Both the testimony at the public hearings and the comments mailed to the Forest Service were overwhelmingly in favor of instituting the policy.

Forest Service lands are public lands. They are a public resource and a public trust. And the public spoke in a very loud and nearly unanimous voice about how they want those lands protected. And the Bush administration is trying to overturn that protection.

This isn't a matter of Bush vs. the Clinton administration, but Bush vs. the People of the United States.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), April 26, 2001.


Toilet paper is a waste of our forest resources. Please lick your butt clean like I do.

-- (Smokey@bare.bears), April 26, 2001.

Nipper:

Your histrionics are getting a bit hoarse. Maybe it's time to stop shouting and reflect a little.

Yes, the public overwhelmingly opposes these logging roads. If anyone were to take such a poll, what do you suppose the public would feel overwhelmingly about high lumber prices? Similarly, the public overwhelmingly demands (a) low electricity rates; (b) No generation plants or transmission lines anywhere near them; (c) no new drilling in any specifically identified location for more gas or oil (though drilling "somewhere else" generally isn't considered so bad...).

This is the raison d'etre behind "government by poll result", you know. Ask if people want their cake when it's politically congenial, and overwhelmingly they say yes. Ask if they want to eat it too when *that's* congenial, and overwhelmingly they say yes. Isn't that amazing?

An issue like this begs for a cost/benefit analysis where the costs and the benefits are explicitly quantified. It does NOT call for the kind of emotional appeal to vast ignorance you find so convincing when such an appeal suits your preferences.

Personally, I think Bush's environmental credentials stink. While there are very real tradeoffs to be considered (and polls can only tell us that the public overwhelmingly favors omelettes and opposes breaking eggs), Bush's general approach seems to be geared toward making life easier for certain corportations without any clear measurable benefit to the public at large.

Seen from 8 miles high, our lifestyle generally is environmentally unfriendly, and we show no inclination to change it. We'll pay the cost of feeding it one way or another, but there's such a thing as good management and such a thing as better management. If by "protection" you mean leaving the environment entirely untouched, this is NOT management, this is demagoguery. We need to recognize that eggs MUST be broken before we can usefully discuss how to keep that breakage to a necessary minimum. Your sloganeering doesn't help this effort.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 26, 2001.


Flint: "Bush's general approach seems to be geared toward making life easier for certain corportations without any clear measurable benefit to the public at large. "

Thank you, Flint. Since it is you who said this, it is obviously a sober, measured, rational and even-handed reflection of reality. If I were to say this same thing, it would be histrionics. Such is the magic of your name.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), April 26, 2001.


Nipper:

No, if *I* were to post ONLY the sentence you extracted, not only with no mention of competing desirable interests going on here, but with the strong implication that there was only a single side to the story (mine), *then* it would be histrionics.

Propaganda is easy. Even recognizing multiple valid viewpoints is beyond many here, but you are not among them. Somehow I doubt that the conflict between environment and energy is a complete surprise to you, and I even suspect that your use of energy to defend the environment has a certain irony to it.

In short, I consider you capable of more than the oversimplification you so often project.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 26, 2001.



"I consider you capable of more than the oversimplification you so often project."

If any man has perfected the left-handed compliment, it is you, Flint. More than any other person on this board you have mastered this noble art of sounding respectful, while heaping disrespect on one's head. It is a neat trick. When the wind is in the right quarter, one may even trick oneself into believing it conforms to the golden rule.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), April 27, 2001.


When the cost of lumber shoots through the roof, it's the poor that are going to feel it the most. But dumbshits don't understand logic.

-- (greens@dont.work.for.a.living), April 27, 2001.

Nipper:

You are at the very least my equal at lavishing polite insults upon deserving people. But a quick review shows that in doing so, you lose sight of the issue being discussed.

Remember the forests and the logging roads? Are you recommending that we discontinue building such roads ever again? Should their construction be permitted but regulated? What regulations would you consider sensible? Should each proposed road be subject to review? By whom, using what criteria?

I really am interested in this issue, because preserving the environment is important to me. Can we agree that there is such a thing as too much protection? If so, what does that mean?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 27, 2001.


A policy that forbids any type of human activity on national lands encourages the conditions that contribute to uncontrollable wildfires that destroy nearly all forms of natural wildlife in the burned area. I certainly don't think clearcutting is desirable, but culling is a sound practice.

-- helen (out@my.league.but), April 27, 2001.

Nipster:

Forest Service lands are public lands. They are a public resource and a public trust. And the public spoke in a very loud and nearly unanimous voice about how they want those lands protected. And the Bush administration is trying to overturn that protection.

Yep, this is what it is about. It isn't about roads, it isn't about timber rights, it isn't about lumber prices or fire supression [if you have been to some of the places that burned in Montana last year, it is scrub]; nope it is none of the above.

Now we, as a people, have agreed [a majority opinion as promulgated by our courts] that the people of [for an example let's take] Montana don't have absolute control over the use of a large part of the land in their state.

The argument is over how much input and influence they will have over the limitations of use placed on that land. It really is a question about how much control people in [say] LA will have over the lifestyle of people in Two Dot, Montana [yes there is such a place].

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), April 27, 2001.



And as long as we are obeying the vote of the people i want a vote on how much social security i am receiving. oh, that's right! this is a republic with a bill of rights. but then, that has been forgotten. hasen't it.

-- Mr. Pinochle (oldtimes@tb2000.com), April 28, 2001.

One Note:

My comments have nothing to do with my feelings on the matter.

I, in my simple way, want to point out that we can't agree about a solution until we agree about what the problem is that we are discussing.

The previous admistration was interested in votes and money from environmentalists. So it was an environmental problem. The present admistration is inerested in votes and money from industry. So it is an economic problem.

In my opinion, it is neither. If I am correct, we must make this change in thinking. Of course, I could be wrong and often am.

Best Wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), April 28, 2001.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ