Bush Sets Rules to Speed Logging in U.S. Forests
By Mike Allen and Eric Pianin for the Washington Post.

President Bush announced plans yesterday to speed up the cutting of trees and brush in national forests by curtailing environmental reviews and judicial oversight, with the aim of reducing wildfires fueled by overgrowth.

Bush acted after both houses of Congress rejected the proposed changes when he asked for them last summer. The new rules will decrease, from 200 pages to perhaps only one page, the amount of environmental impact information needed to approve clear-cutting projects in some areas...

"This plan is nothing more than a payback to the timber industry, allowing it to remove trees far from where people live," said Amy Mall, a forest specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The administration proposals will be issued in a final version after a 30-day public comment period, and then will take effect. Bush was able to make the changes without congressional approval by acting under an exemption in administrative regulations for projects that do not have a significant impact on the human environment.

The plan applies to 10 national forests, most of them in mountain and western states, and the administration wants to have it in effect before the next fire season. The new rules will fundamentally change the way federal agencies manage millions of acres of forest, dramatically speeding up thinning and restoration projects by eliminating the need for full environmental impact assessments. The rules will sharply reduce the ability of opponents to delay new projects until a court has ruled, and reviews mandated by the Endangered Species Act will be quicker.

The announcement was the latest example of Bush using executive powers to accomplish aims he could not win in Congress. Last month the administration announced plans to streamline the process of conducting environmental reviews before allowing drilling, logging and other activities in national forests. Yesterday's announcement offers new fodder to critics who say his changes in environmental policy consistently benefit executives and industries that are major Republican donors.

Here's the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A42732-2002Dec11¬Found=true

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Bush Sets Rules to Speed Logging in U.S. Forests

At a briefing, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton explains the new forest rules, which the White House says are needed to reduce wildfire risks. Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman is at left. (Robert A. Reeder -- The Washington Post)

By Mike Allen and Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 12, 2002; Page A01

President Bush announced plans yesterday to speed up the cutting of trees and brush in national forests by curtailing environmental reviews and judicial oversight, with the aim of reducing wildfires fueled by overgrowth.

Bush acted after both houses of Congress rejected the proposed changes when he asked for them last summer. The new rules will decrease, from 200 pages to perhaps only one page, the amount of environmental impact information needed to approve clear-cutting projects in some areas.

The president said the plan, which will increase the number of controlled burns, will help prevent another epidemic of forest fires like the one this year that burned 7 million acres in the West and destroyed more than 2,000 buildings. Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman, briefing reporters after meeting with Bush, said the changes were designed "to streamline unnecessary, burdensome red tape."

"We continue to be hampered by outdated, inefficient and time-consuming processes that often delay projects to improve forest and rangeland health until it's too late," Veneman said.

But conservationists said the plan will do relatively little to address the problems of tinder-like underbrush and fire-prone trees near heavily populated areas, even as it gives loggers greater leeway to cut larger, more commercially valuable trees in remote regions.

"This plan is nothing more than a payback to the timber industry, allowing it to remove trees far from where people live," said Amy Mall, a forest specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The administration proposals will be issued in a final version after a 30-day public comment period, and then will take effect. Bush was able to make the changes without congressional approval by acting under an exemption in administrative regulations for projects that do not have a significant impact on the human environment.

The plan applies to 10 national forests, most of them in mountain and western states, and the administration wants to have it in effect before the next fire season. The new rules will fundamentally change the way federal agencies manage millions of acres of forest, dramatically speeding up thinning and restoration projects by eliminating the need for full environmental impact assessments. The rules will sharply reduce the ability of opponents to delay new projects until a court has ruled, and reviews mandated by the Endangered Species Act will be quicker.

The announcement was the latest example of Bush using executive powers to accomplish aims he could not win in Congress. Last month the administration announced plans to streamline the process of conducting environmental reviews before allowing drilling, logging and other activities in national forests. Yesterday's announcement offers new fodder to critics who say his changes in environmental policy consistently benefit executives and industries that are major Republican donors.

Many Democrats and Republicans agree that the policies of recent decades have allowed too much national forest growth near populated areas. They differ on what should be done in remote areas. Bush's plan would allow more cutting of trees and brush in or near lightly populated areas.

Congressional Republicans and forest industry leaders hailed the announcement as an important breakthrough in the effort to control forest fires. But some Democrats and environmentalists sharply criticized it for limiting public input in key decisions.

Rep. Scott McInnis (R-Colo.), chairman of the forest subcommittee of the House Resources Committee and a champion of the president's proposal, said the plan "represents real progress in addressing the growing wildfire epidemic. With the next fire season a few short months away, western communities want forward movement and they want it now."

Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton said many clearing projects, which the govenrment calls "fuels reduction," are blocked by concerns about endangered species, which then lose their habitats in forest fires. "Dense overgrown forests and rangelands have grown like a cancer," Norton said. "They need to be treated."

But Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), outgoing chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the administration was ramming through proposals that had been rejected this fall by congressional Democrats and Republicans.

"I think most of us in Congress wanted to facilitate the thinning of these high-risk areas," Bingaman said. "But we felt the administration was pursuing too much exemption from existing law in order to accomplish that, and we were trying to get agreement to do something that seemed more reasonable."

In August, Bush unveiled his Healthy Forests Initiative, which suggested congressional action to accomplish many of the changes he now is making administratively, during a tour of wildfire devastation in southern Oregon. Senate Democrats blocked efforts by Sens. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) and Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) to attach a version of the president's proposal to the fiscal 2003 Interior Department spending bill. Republican and Democratic members of the House Resources Committee could not agree on a compromise.

The administration's proposal is aimed at reducing legal and administrative barriers to thinning underbrush and small trees, as well as commercially attractive old-growth trees. The plan would restructure rules that govern appeals of federal decision-making on logging in highly fire-prone areas -- particularly making "less cumbersome" the National Environmental Policy Act, which environmentalists see as a bedrock law.

"We have a situation now which our chief of the Forest Service likes to call 'analysis paralysis,' where you make a decision, and it continues to get appealed into the courts," Veneman said. "We then never get anything done."