Posted on 05/05/2005 8:34:54 AM PDT by nypokerface
WASHINGTON - Governors are being given 18 months to change the Bush administration's plan to open up to 58.5 million acres of remote national forestland to road building, timbering and other commercial activity.
In one of its biggest environmental decisions, the administration will let governors petition for more or fewer restrictions against developing nearly a third of the 191 million acres of national forests, according to briefing documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The U.S. Forest Service planned to announce the new "roadless" rule later Thursday. It replaces one that former President Clinton had put in place little more than a week before leaving office in January 2001. Clinton's regulation blocked road construction as a way to prevent logging, mining and other industry activities in the backcountry.
The Forest Service, which will review and have final say over the petitions, calls the new process voluntary. "If a governor does not want to propose changes ... then no petition need be submitted," the agency says in the documents.
As much as 34.3 million acres could be immediately opened to road construction if governors submit no petitions or they are rejected, the Forest Service estimates.
The other 24.2 million acres currently are off-limits to road building under existing forest management plans. But environmentalists say the new rule would let the administration rewrite those plans to lift restrictions against development on most of that forestland.
I wish environmentalists would do something useful. Like get a job on a road-building crew. An honest days work for an honest day's pay. That's what they need to experience.
Quite a few years ago in Colorado, many 4WD roads were closed because of irresponsible drivers. If opening the forest to road construction brings back the mass wasting of pristine forest, then I say keep them closed.
Ahhh..the life of a lumber jack..
Stoke of the pen, law of the land...kinda cool
Really. They should be flapping their jacks, not their jaws.
Most of the roads closed as part of the RAOR were so lightly travelled to begin with that they were defacto hiking and riding trails. All RAOR did was impoverish the people living in the remotest areas of the country.
Alternately, but not as favored, start logging all the national forests. Those trees are worth money and we could use the cash to pay off the debt or to reduce taxes.
"I wish environmentalists would do something useful. Like get a job on a road-building crew. An honest days work for an honest day's pay. That's what they need to experience.'
ping!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's right, besides private land is usually better cared for than publoic anyway
What did they do, drive on them?
"If opening the forest to road construction brings back the mass wasting of pristine forest, then I say keep them closed."
Forests need thinning. Pristine = ready to burn to the ground. - My land is ajacent to the national forest; I want 2/3 of the trees removed to preserve the rest. Thank God you have nothing to say about it. Klinton's forest rules cost us more lumber in fires than we had used for construction or paper products since the country was first occupied.
Amen. And if humans can't enjoy the bounty of the earth that belongs to them, then what's the point?
You gotta go where you wanna go and do what you wanna do.
I totally agree with you!
We live adjacent to a National Forest, too, and if they spent as much time controlling all the beetle kill and thinning the forests to make them healtheir as they do blocking little-traveled trails to 4-wheelers......we'd ALL be alot better off!
OMG.
This is awful.
I hunt elk in those so-called "printine forests". The Forest Circus is guilty of massive mis-management of our natural resources.
I hunt down by Tin Cup, Colorado. I can tell you from vast experience in the woods that they are a tinderbox waiting to explode. We MUST log our forests in order to keep them. I'm afraid of a fire down there, it would burn from Gunnison to Vail with no way to stop it. The roads have been closed and tank trapped, so there is no way in to fight the fires.
The timber where we hunt is so thick in places you can't get through it. Ever been in the black timber? There are areas so overgrown up there even the elk avoid it. Perfect habitat for massive forest fires.
(Rant over, no personal attack intended, just making a point).
"Pristine forests" ? ? ? ? ?
All of North America was fire managed by the indigenous peoples. P.S. Martin wrote about this at length.
"Stroke of the pen" if I remember correctly.
Pingaroonie. Get that road re-opened, gal!
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