WASHINGTON – More timber and brush can be cut and cleared with less environmental scrutiny under a bill President Bush signed into law on Wednesday. He said the initiative will help protect communities from devastating wildfires.
“This law will not prevent every fire, but it is an important step forward, a vital step to make sure we do our duty to protect our nation’s forests,” said Bush, who stood before rows of wildland firefighters. “We’ll help save lives and property and we’ll help protect our forests from sudden and needless destruction.”
The Healthy Forests Restoration Act is the first major forest management legislation in a quarter-century. It seeks to speed up the harvesting of trees in overgrown woodlands and insect-infested trees on 20 million acres of federal forestland most at risk to wildfires.
It does that by scaling back required environmental studies. Also, it limits appeals and directs judges to act quickly on legal challenges to logging plans.
The law, HR 1904, authorizes Congress to dedicate $760 million a year for thinning projects. At least half of the money must be spent on projects near homes and communities.
The law also creates a major change in the way federal courts consider legal challenges of tree-cutting projects. Judges would have to weigh the environmental consequences of inaction and the risk of fire in cases involving thinning projects. Any court order blocking such projects would have to be reconsidered every 60 days.
Critics said the bill would let companies cut down large, old-growth trees in the name of fire prevention.
“There’s a real danger that the president’s pen might as well be a chain saw,” said Amy Mall, a forestry specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
But Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said language added to Bush’s initial proposal will protect old-growth and large-diameter trees.
“For the first time, this new law protects old-growth forests while providing substantial support for hazardous fuels reduction,” Wyden said.
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., one of the co-authors of the bill in the House, also said it could help produce jobs in rural areas.
Jay Watson, wildfire expert with The Wilderness Society, said important changes were included in the bipartisan compromise that added money for thinning and required half the money to be spent in forests near communities. How the law is put into place will determine if it is helpful to the forests or a payback to the timber companies, he said.
Bush could benefit politically by this legislation, which could create additional logging jobs; in 2000, he lost Oregon by less than half a percentage point and Washington by less than 6 percentage points.
Sean Cosgrove, a forest expert with the Sierra Club, said some good may come from the increased spending on forest treatment, but there is bound to be unnecessary logging in roadless areas and wildlife habitat as the timber companies try to harvest valuable old-growth trees.
“The timber industry fought real hard for this bill for a reason, and it’s not because they want to remove brush and chaparral,” Cosgrove said. “Through and through, this thing is about increasing commercial logging with less environmental oversight.”
Legislation aimed at speeding decisions on where to allow timber cutting in national forests languished in Congress for three years until the recent fires in California, which burned 750,000 acres and destroyed 3,640 homes.
Despite the California fires, 2003 was a below-average fire year, with 3.8 million acres burned. Twenty-eight firefighters died battling the blazes, according to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. Nearly 7 million acres were charred in 2002.
The Bush administration estimates that 190 million acres are at heightened risk for a severe wildfire – an area the size of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming combined.
Also on Wednesday, the government agencies that protect endangered species issued regulations relinquishing their initial review to determine if forest thinning projects will harm endangered species.
Biologists with the Forest Service and other agencies will now make those judgments to speed up forest treatment.
Marty Hayden of the environmental group Earthjustice said the regulations eliminate “a crucial check and balance” on the Forest Service, which he contended has long favored the timber industry.
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