Friday, Jan. 5, 2001

Clinton Moves to Protect Forests

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton is declaring nearly a
third of the country's federal forest land off limits to most
logging, but some Republicans already are urging incoming
President-elect Bush to scuttle the plan.

The president, who was announcing the massive forest
protection plan Friday, is determined to establish a legacy for
protecting public lands as he completes the final weeks of his
presidency.

In recent months he has proclaimed a number of new national
monuments to further protect federal lands and was expected
to designate several more before he leaving office on Jan. 20.
But his forest protection rules, covering nearly 60 million acres
of roadless forest lands in 38 states, have been even more
controversial.

``The president pledged more than a year ago to protect these
places, and this action fulfills that commitment,'' White House
spokesman Elliott Diringer said. ``It restores balance to our
national forests and ensures strong protection of these
extraordinary lands for future generations.''

But the forest plan, largely intact from a proposal unveiled in
November, has come under intense attack from mostly
Republican Western lawmakers, and from energy, timber and
mining industries as being too restrictive.

Last week, Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, the new chairman of the
House Resources Committee, urged Bush to work with
Congress to roll back the expected forest regulation.

In a letter to Bush and Vice President-elect Dick Cheney,
Hansen called the ban on road building and the logging
restrictions ``one of the most egregious abuses by the Clinton
administration.''

Hansen also outlined other Clinton-era environmental actions
that ought to be overturned - from banning snowmobiles in
parks to the president's string of monument designations.

Under the forest plan, the Forest Service will ban road building
in 58.5 million acres of federal forests where no roads
currently exit, including 9.3 million acres in the Tongass
National Forest in Alaska.

The regulations also will limit future logging in those areas to
only activities that ``restore and preserve'' the forest, although
commercial timber contracts already in the government
pipeline will be allowed to go through. In some cases that
could amount to continued logging for another six to seven
years at today's harvesting rates, officials acknowledged.

Some environmentalists had wanted the timber sales stopped
immediately. Still, environmentalists applauded Clinton's
decision, while at the same time voicing concern that Bush
may blunt its implementation or work with its opponents in
Congress to reverse it.

Any efforts to overturn it ``would come with a great deal of
political liability for Bush. This has huge public support,''
maintained Kenneth Rait of the Heritage Forest Campaign, an
Oregon-based environmental group.

Despite an outcry from some Western lawmakers, Clinton has
all along been determined to complete the forest plan before
he leaves office. One senior adviser characterized it as largely
a question of leaving an environmental legacy.

The vast majority of roadless federal forests are in the West,
including parts of Idaho's Bitterroot range and Alaska's
Tongass, viewed by environmentalists as North America's rain
forest. Smaller sections are scattered across the country from
Florida's Apalachicola National Forest and Virginia's George
Washington National Forest to New Hampshire's White
Mountains.

Clinton advisers have argued that the impact on the timber
industry would be minimal because the roadless areas -
although 31 percent of all federal forests - account for only a
small percentage of all timber taken from government-owned
land.

Still, Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, called the plan ``fatally
flawed'' and predicted it likely will be overturned by the courts.
He has complained that the road-building restrictions would
prevent the development of large reserves of natural gas,
especially in the intermountain West. Timber, mining and
energy industries already have threatened lawsuits against the
forest plan.

Another of the plan's most vocal critics, Sen. Larry Craig,
R-Idaho, has promised ``to leave no stone unturned'' to find a
way to block the Clinton regulation. Several senators have
said they will use a never-been-invoked 1996 law that allows
Congress to rescind a regulation within 60 days.

But rescinding the regulation may not be easy.

A coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans
increasingly has opposed road-building in federal forests,
said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. As to those who want to
overturn Clinton's plan, ``they better bring their lunch to that
fight'' because it will be intense, said Miller.

 

All this protection idea is seriously flawed. Up here in northern Minnesota, we have a place called the Boundry Waters Canoe Area. It is a huge forest area that is totally off limits to logging, or motorized vehicle use of any kind. A couple years ago there was a very bad windstorm. A huge amount of the old growth timber was LEVELED flat. (It looks like those aftermath pics of Mount St. Helens?) It took well over a year for the DNR, or whomever is in charge, to get their heads out of their rears and allow some logging. Meanwhile the timber is going to waste, plus causing a HUGE fire hazzard. The downed timber is extremely difficult to harvest because it is a tangled mess. It is much worse than if they had allowed some select cutting all along. At least then most of the timber would not have been wasted. I don't care who uses the place, even the most devoted woodsy type will throw their trash in the woods when nobody is looking. For them to act so holier than thou is utterly sickening, and I love it when they get busted! (Billdo C.)

 

The really frustating thing was the other bills he put into law at the same time (I agree that the wilderness one is terrible). CLinton's first official act as president 8 years ago was to sign a bill that made it illegal for former presidential staff and cabinet members to take up jobs as lobbyists, using their "inside" knowledge and influence to get stuff done. Now, understand, there was a lot of fanfare and politcal hay made of this. He basically impacted the outgoing Republicans from Bush Sr's staff. Now that Clinton is a short-timer, guess what he just did. It's not too hard! He just signed (along with the wilderness bill) another bill which wipes out the lobbyist bill from 8 years earlier. If it was such a good idea 8 years ago, why is it bad now? Except, of course, it would impact him and his staff. NBC News casually called it a going-away gift to his staff and cabinet. His legacy? He can talk out of all sides of his face. It's not illegal if he does it. It's just illegal if everyone else gets to do it. What a hypocrite! Good riddance to bad trash!!

 

Man , it must be really scary to live with so many right wing fanatics running around and spouting off all of the time. I honestly can't understand extremists who freak out at other extremists.
We have to have a balanced approach, and that means protecting some land, like it or not.
Talking about selective logging as an alternative to conservation is simplistic at best, and doesn't take in to account the realities of forest ecology.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't necessarliy agree with most of what environmentalists advocate either, certainly not their extreme views anyway. I just think we need to try and see things from more than one point of view, and try and take a moderate approach.

 

quick, vote on this roadless poll
www.msnbc.com/news/511867.asp#survey

 

thenewfiebullet-do you even own an atv?

 

Yes, I own a 1999 Wolverine.
I don't, however, live in the US, so the issues are a little different for me. Where I live there is plenty of land to ride on, so we don't have to worry about land closures the way you do.
It just worries me when I see the ATV magazines openly support the Republicans because of one issue, and ATVers in general who seem to forget that there is more than one side to every issue. In order to come to a consenses about anything, you must first be able to see your opponents point of view.

 

The problem is the "so called" enviromentalist have succeeded in attaching a "polluter or right wing" label on anyone who doesn't agree 100% with their agenda. They manufacture crisis where there is none. Their real agenda is socialism pure and simple. They are not interested in getting along. Their goal is to have a stalinist state. They could care less about pollution it is just a cover to get government control of everything.

 

so what are you trying to say??
you want massive logging?
we need plant life and trees to produce oxygen.
just in case you havnt noticed theres houses going up everywhere. if you want to blame someone blame the people. i ride around and see lots of houses forsale but alot of people cant live in an old house they have to build that new dream house....so what happens? another chunk of land gone to a dam house. you can say what you want but all i see is houses and businesses going up everywhere. we need the trees and forest for the good of mother earth.

 

There should be an even tradeoff somewhere. I personally don't ride on any government land because I do not think there is any in indiana (or tha I am yest to find). It is wrong for them to take land away like that.