Bush Push On Forest Plan
The Bush administration asked Congress to speed up fire-prevention efforts by scaling back environmental studies and eliminating appeals of logging projects meant to reduce risk in forests in danger of burning.
Environmentalists denounced the plan.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton told the House Resources Committee Thursday the president's Healthy Forests Initiative is an effort to speed up tree cutting in certain forests to prevent the type of severe fires that have charred more than 6.3 million acres this year.
"We don't want to guard against fire entirely. What we want to guard against is the catastrophic fires," Norton said. "We want to return our forests to an ecosystem that will survive fires."
The proposed legislation builds on the principles President Bush outlined two weeks ago after touring a scorched Oregon forest. Bush said bureaucratic delays and environmental appeals were stalling efforts to reduce fire risks.
The Bush plan would identify 10 million acres of land in critical fire danger and exempt plans to cut trees on the designated areas from normal environmental reviews.
It would force legal challenges to go straight to federal court and prohibit judges from issuing temporary restraining orders to stop such projects.
Marty Hayden, legislative director for Earthjustice, said the provision would allow the Forest Service to chop trees while the court decides if the project is even legal.
"It attempts to make the judicial process a sham," he said.
Severe drought and overgrown forests have contributed to one of the worst fire seasons in 50 years. Twenty people have been killed and $1.25 billion has been spent fighting the fires this year.
Rep. Peter DeFazio agreed there are problems with forest management, but said repeal of environmental laws is not the solution.
The Wilderness Society called the Bush plan an assault on environmental protections.
"Under these rules, the Forest Service could approve logging projects in old-growth forest with absolutely no environmental analysis and no public involvement at all," said Michael Anderson, policy analyst with the environmental group.
By Robert Gehrke