Obama administration supports a timeout on road building in national forests

Los Angeles Times ^ | May 28, 2009 | Jim Tankersley

[reaganaut1]

The U.S. Forest Service will announce a "timeout" on new road-building and other development in designated roadless areas of national forests today, sources say, prolonging a seesaw battle over a policy first announced in the waning days of the Clinton administration.

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which former President Clinton issued shortly before leaving office in 2001, protects nearly 60 million acres of national forest land from logging and other development, largely in Western states. It has faced a protracted court battle that pitted conservation groups against the timber industry and several of those states.

The Bush administration let the rule stand but effectively undercut it by exempting large swaths of land from its protections, including parts of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, and by allowing states to petition to set their own rules for development in those areas.

President Obama voiced support for the Clinton rule on the campaign trail.

Since Inauguration Day, environmentalists have pressed the Obama administration to call the road-building "time out" and to instruct the Justice Department, which continues to defend some of the Bush policies in court, to change course and defend the original rule.

[reaganaut1]

Does Obama ever do anything to make it EASIER for Americans to produce? Even on his own terms, he ought to let his serfs produce things that he can then expropriate.

[rhombus]

Well there goes those jobs.

[Uhaul]

Because we LIKE massive uncontrollable forest fires.

[MissDairyGoodnessVT]

yeah, and that cracky-ass railroad system he wants to build, too..... lol , roflmao

[LtKerst]

Obama is a Communist Traitor

[Nachum]

The list, ping

[TigersEye]

Another hit on the economy. I think 0bamao is batting 1,000 in that regard.

[Cicero]

I’ve done cleanup work in my woods all my life. If you just let forests sit there, with no people, then you not only get lots of disastrous fires, you also get lots of dead wood and overcrowded trees, and a smaller number and variety of animals.

There’s nothing NATURAL about a “nature” from which humans are excluded.

[bray]

These are jobs he doesn’t want to save. By the time obozo is done we won’t have 3 million jobs left.

Pray for America

[Gator113]

Is this some of those jobs Obama was going to save.

[Disambiguator]

Wildlands Project, now the Wildlands Network. Check it out.

[q_an_a]

It would not hurt them if a few builders and lumber companies had an advertisment telling Americans how much timber is lost form these stupid rules and what it adds to the cost of housing and remodeling projects. They should tell the story in real dollars not “vague” concepts of percentages. It would not hurt the trucking industry to run a few advertisments about getting lumber to the mill means JOBS for American drivers who drive trucks with names like Peterbuilt and International...more jobs.

[goodnesswins]

That’s okay...the lumber mills and paper mills, etc....they’re doing what any smart business would do....moving OFFSHORE to places like Uruguay and Poland....

[q_an_a]

We have spent 20 years going to Poland or Central America for some things that Americans want to do and can do better just like we can build a better car - when pushed. All we lose is our sense of pride for jobs well done. We lose places that people can work - in the country because it is a good place to raise a family. We lose the spirit of growing a business and we out source that spirit to the eager off shore worker.