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Bush moves with plan to thin forests
The Daily Sentinel ^ | 12.12.02 | By GARY HARMON

Posted on 12/12/2002 10:46:04 AM PST by Libertarianize the GOP

12.12.02 Bush moves with plan to thin forests

By GARY HARMON The Daily Sentinel

The Bush administration moved Wednesday on plans to reduce the fire hazards in the nation's forests before summer.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Agriculture Secretary Anne Veneman met with President Bush before announcing a series of actions aimed at trimming the amount of time it takes to approve logging projects.

U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., chairman of the subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, said this step, in what Bush has dubbed his Healthy Forests Initiative, can go only so far and that Congress eventually must take action.

Still, the Bush plan "represents real progress," McInnis said in a news release. "With the next fire season a few short months away, Western communities want forward movement on the wildfire crisis and they want it now."

The administration effort adopts a McInnis proposal that would limit appeals of thinning projects to people or groups that raised objections at early hearings.

McInnis and others have said that the forests are endangered by a process that can extend project reviews for years.

The White House pointed to complex federal land-management procedures that prevent "timely action to address ecological crises on public lands."

It cited a 1995 winter storm that knocked down trees on nearly 35,000 acres of forest land in the Six Rivers National Forest in California. Land managers tussled for three years on the analytical and procedural requirements needed to remove dead and dying trees, resulting in the treatment of 1,600 acres. Catastrophic wildfires in 1999 burned through the 35,000 storm-damaged acres as well as 90,000 acres of adjacent forest lands, costing $70 million in firefighting bills.

"Seven years after the storm, the project remains tied up in procedural appeals, and the hazardous ecological conditions remain unaddressed," the White House said in a statement.

The steps announced Wednesday drew sharp criticism from Mike Francis, a forest specialist with the Wilderness Society.

“Those are nothing more than the administration’s typical desires to cut the public out of forest decisions,” Francis said. “This administration doesn’t like what the public wants to do with their forests.”

The Bush plan involves more frequent use of "categorical exemptions" under the National Environmental Policy Act, allowing for more quick action by federal land managers.

Making categorical exemptions “seems to be nothing more than trying to enact their Healthy Forest Initiative without having Congress decide if they want to loosen environmental review on land decisions for things such as logging that can be very damaging,” Francis said.

That marks a departure from environmentalists' previous support of categorical exemptions, McInnis said.

The exemptions were embraced by environmental groups as a "scaled-back alternative" to legislation he crafted last summer, McInnis said. "I'll be interested to see if that remains the case."

Pete Kolbenschlag, West Slope field director for the Colorado Environmental Coalition, said the administration's move was "troublesome to us."

After announcing last month plans to exempt forestwide planning from comprehensive review, saying it would occur at the project level, "Two weeks later they're back wanting to exempt projects at the local level as well," Kolbenschlag said. "So where will impacts to our forests, and to values like wildlife habitat, sensitive species and water quality, be considered?"

Bush's proposal also would eliminate specific standards and procedures for maintaining and monitoring wildlife populations that foresters had to comply with, substituting broad goals in their place.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: Colorado
KEYWORDS: arizona; bzzzzzzz; california; chainsaw; deadwood; enviralists; newmexico; oregon; wyoming

1 posted on 12/12/2002 10:46:04 AM PST by Libertarianize the GOP
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To: *Enviralists; madfly
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list
2 posted on 12/12/2002 10:47:07 AM PST by Libertarianize the GOP
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To: Libertarianize the GOP
Why would you post this under just Colorado? This is an Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana issue? Ha ha
3 posted on 12/12/2002 12:22:49 PM PST by Delphinium
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To: Libertarianize the GOP
Why would you post this under just Colorado? This is an Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana issue? Ha ha
4 posted on 12/12/2002 12:24:41 PM PST by Delphinium
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To: Carry_Okie; backhoe; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Libertarianize the GOP; Fish out of Water; freefly; ...
ping
5 posted on 12/12/2002 12:34:07 PM PST by madfly
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To: madfly
I'll pick this up when ( or maybe if! ) I get my 'better' PC back from last nite's crash & burn... it's still not working properly.
6 posted on 12/12/2002 1:22:26 PM PST by backhoe
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To: Libertarianize the GOP
Francis said. “This administration doesn’t like what the public wants to do with their forests.”

The public wants to log those suckers and use the proceeds to pay public debt. The public also wants to sell all the national lands other than military installations and whatever other lands are explicitly allowed under the constitution.

this Francis guy reminds me of a talking mule

God Save America (Please)

7 posted on 12/12/2002 1:47:49 PM PST by John O
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To: madfly
Deseret News, Thursday, December 12, 2002

Bush forest plan to get Utah test

Proposal aims to cut fire threat across the West

By Lee Davidson
Deseret News Washington correspondent

WASHINGTON — Forest and grasslands in Utah will help test-drive a Bush administration proposal to cut red tape it says delays clearing excess timber that has fueled catastrophic wildfires in the West.

The Dixie National Forest in Pine Valley near St. George is among 10 forests, along with areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management near towns in Millard County, selected to implement the streamlined procedures.

"It doesn't solve all our 'analysis paralysis' problems. . . . But it is a good first step," said Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, a former Utahn.

But environmental groups and congressional Democratic leaders quickly condemned the proposal, which sidesteps a deadlocked Congress, saying it might be a ruse to allow quicker approval for commercial logging by falsely claiming it is needed for fuels reduction.

"The president's proposal is nothing more than a Trojan horse designed to promote unhealthy logging of our forests," said William H. Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society. He called instead for more clearing of fuels immediately around homes bordering forests rather than cutting down trees deep inside the forests.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., agreed, saying the administration ignored safeguards Democrats sought in negotiations on Bush's "healthy forest initiative," which failed to pass the current Congress.

"I am struck that the president would move forward without debate in Congress on a policy that is so controversial and so important," Miller said. "Bush has interpreted the recent elections as a mandate to pollute, cut and drill."

However, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said the West faces an "emergency situation" with excess fuels in many areas that threaten to turn small, routine fires into catastrophic wildfires that could destroy vast forests, habitat for endangered species and nearby towns. She said quick action this winter is needed to reduce next year's fires.

She noted that fires this year destroyed 7.1 million acres — the size of Maryland and Rhode Island combined — killed 23 firefighters, and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people. Earlier this year, Bush blamed many of the larger fires on delays caused by appeals from environmental groups opposed to forest thinning projects.

The new initiatives (on which the administration is accepting comments for 30 days before issuing final rules) would allow two types of projects — those for fuel reduction and those for restoration seeding after fires — to proceed with almost no environmental review. Bosworth said that is based on previous study of 3,500 similar projects that never found environmental problems.

"We do analysis, but because we have lots and lots of information from past projects that are similar then we will no longer do the environmental assessment or the environmental impact statement," which have often run hundreds of pages and require months or years to prepare, Bosworth said.

On top of that, new initiatives would also streamline the review of certain more complicated but similar projects. That includes using a new "template" for such projects to speed drafting review documents, and imposing a new decision not to delay projects (even if someone appeals them) unless ordered by a court.

Assistant Interior Secretary Rebecca Watson said federal officials are currently holding a training seminar in Salt Lake City about how to use those streamlined procedures, and then teams will leave to test-drive them in 10 high-priority forests. Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality, said, "They (the teams) are going to deploy next week . . . so that we can actually bench-test the process, see if it works, see how stake holders respond to it, see if we can cut some of the time lines . . . (and) use some computerized technology to run some of the documentation."

Those 10 test areas include 360 acres of Dixie National Forest near the towns of Pine Valley and Central in Washington County. Officials want to use chain saws to thin underbrush in forests near homes there and to burn the material that they clear.

Another of the test areas is the "Pahvant Fuels Project" on BLM lands near the towns of Fillmore, Kanosh and Meadow. Interior Department officials said it may involve 5,000 to 20,000 acres over five years. They seek to use mechanical thinning and proscribed burns to remove "invasive junipers" and restore grasslands used by deer and other animals.

Bosworth said the new initiatives will not only shorten project approval but also will allow the Forest Service and other agencies to actually do more forest maintenance work.

"It's our objective to be able to get more work done with the dollar that we get, and get the work done on the ground . . . rather than spending the dollars doing the paperwork," he said. "We believe that we can increase the amount of work considerably, by maybe a third, if we can reduce the amount of paperwork," he said.

But Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope disagreed. "It is disingenuous to promote increased logging packaged as fuel reduction. If the Bush administration is serious about protecting communities from forest fires, it should focus resources on real fuel reduction near at-risk communities instead of opening more loopholes for the timber industry."



8 posted on 12/12/2002 1:50:01 PM PST by glock rocks
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To: Libertarianize the GOP; madfly
How odd that suddeenly the environmentalists identify themselves with the "public"??????

The "public" has no desire to see millions of acres of trees in flames.
9 posted on 12/12/2002 2:24:04 PM PST by WaterDragon
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To: WaterDragon
Here`s the solution for the whole mess. As part of the submission in every environmental lawsuit, the complaining party must present the dead body of a practising trial lawyer. Now that wouldn`t prevent law suites, of course, but it makes it easier to control lawyer habitat and will prevent overgrazing in our courts.
10 posted on 12/12/2002 4:07:15 PM PST by bybybill
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To: glock rocks; madfly
If Bush really wants to help Utah, he should undo that executive order that stole all their coal reserves and took away Utah's school funding. For the life of me, I can't understand why he's letting that one stand. Especially since Billyboy set it up so his buds in Indonesia now get to supply all that (identical) clean coal. Unless I'm mistaken, Indonesia is a radical Muslim hotbed.
11 posted on 12/12/2002 8:06:35 PM PST by holyscroller
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To: holyscroller; B4Ranch; Carry_Okie; madfly; blackie
the really fun part is that the envirowhacks were duped big time, and slapped senseless by their pimp... and they still luv him.

now the clean burn coal is locked up tight, the pimp's got his silver, and an industrializing mexico will burn cheap high sulphur coal.

so the envirals supporting xlinton are promoting acid rain across the fragile desert southwest. it's okay, the endangered desert tortoise can survive on quartz and shale.

go freepin figure.

the radical environmental movement is not about the environment.
it's about socialist world domination.

shoot fast, shoot straight, shoot safe. practice. carry. molon labe.

glock rocks
12 posted on 12/12/2002 9:52:17 PM PST by glock rocks
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To: madfly
Great news.
13 posted on 12/12/2002 9:53:02 PM PST by bybybill
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To: Libertarianize the GOP
Thin the forest? How are they going to get there?
14 posted on 12/12/2002 9:55:24 PM PST by Carry_Okie
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To: glock rocks
"the radical environmental movement is not about the environment. it's about socialist world domination."

Right-on, brother!

It looks like the old curmudgen will have to pull out the old Environazis Duster:

Environazis Duster

Be well - Be armed - Be safe - Molon Labe!

15 posted on 12/13/2002 11:15:06 AM PST by blackie
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