Forest impact statements cut

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, December 12, 2006

GRANTS PASS, Ore. – Long-term management plans for national forests will no longer go through a formal environmental impact statement, the U.S. Forest Service announced Tuesday.

The Forest Service said writing the 15-year plans has no effect on the environment, making the impact statements unnecessary. That conclusion was based on changes to forest planning rules made last year and a past U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says a plan is a statement of intent and does not cause anything to happen.

Individual projects, such as logging, were cut out of forest management plans in last year’s rule changes. Those projects will still have to go through a formal analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act, known as NEPA, said Fred Norbury, associate deputy chief for the national forest system.

Norbury said cutting the environmental impact statement process out of the management plans should shorten the time to produce them to about three years, he said.

Plans now take five to seven years to write, at a cost of $5 million to $7 million.

Conservation groups accused the Bush administration of trying to undercut NEPA, which requires agencies to take a hard look at the environmental effects of their projects and include the public in the decisions.

Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, said he thought the new rule was overdue.

“Wasting time and money, especially court time, on a broad general plan is not in the public interest,” West said.

There are 125 national forests and national grasslands, all of which prepare 15-year management plans.