Caught up in the Bush administrations across-the-board delay of
pending regulations was a rule to ban roadbuilding in 58.5 million acres
of roadless national forest land an area larger than all U.S. national
parks combined including 9.3 million acres in Alaska.
Forest activists say the stakes in the Bush review of the Roadless Area
Conservation Rule could not be higher. In the war over federal land
management between the timber industry and environmentalists, there are
no greater spoils than the last remaining roadless areas, says Mike
Roselle, director of Greenpeace USAs forest campaign.
To conservationists, these areas represent big habitat, necessary for
charismatic megafauna such as grizzly bears, wolves, caribou, bull trout
and wolverines. To the timber industry, roadless areas represent big trees
high-quality timber in large tracts.
In the case of the roadless policy, USDA [Department of Agriculture]
is conducting a review of the rule which contains hundreds of pages of
complex technical documents, says Chris Barone of the Forest Services
Office of Communications.
But proponents of the rule say further review is unnecessary and simply
a way for the Bush Administration to delay implementation. There
was more opportunity for input and public comment than any rulemaking
by the federal government, says Todd True, a staff attorney with
the EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund. Claims that this rule was short
on process are ludicrous.
The Clinton administration began developing a roadless policy in January
1998, when Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck proposed a moratorium on
roadbuilding in most inventoried roadless areas. After a public comment
period, an 18-month moratorium was adopted in February of 1999. One year
later, The Forest Service issued a draft rule and environmental impact
statement for public comment. In the review process, the Forest Service
held more than 600 public meetings and received 1.7 million comments.
The vast majority of the comments supported the rule.
The strong public record in support of the rule, the obvious environmental
benefits and economic trends in the West isolate a few timber companies
as the beneficiaries of any attempts by the Bush administration to repeal
the rule.
The benefits of cutting timber in roadless areas would be quite
narrow, says Spencer Phillips, an economist with the Wilderness
Society. By and large the economies out west have become far more
complex than trees equal jobs, but the folk economics of the
timber industry die hard.
In Montana, one of twelve states that The Wilderness Society studied,
10 to 20 jobs 0.004 percent of the states total economy
could be affected by the plan.
Still, western Republicans in Congress and the administration would like
to see the rule suspended. Rescinding the rule would require the administration
to undergo a review process similar to the one that established the rule.
Since this process could take years to complete, opponents of the rule
are looking for an alternative approach.
Congress has several options to stop the policy from moving forward,
including the Congressional Review Act, part of the Contract with America,
which allows Congress to overturn new regulations. Congress might also
include language overriding the regulation in unrelated legislation.
The timber industry is also looking to the courts for repeal of the rule.
Boise-Cascade, one of the largest benefactors of subsidized federal
lands logging, is the lead plaintiff in a suit to block implementation.
Mike Moser, communications director with Boise Cascade, says Boise brought
the suit for three reasons. First, it is bad policy, a top-down
approach. Local communities were not given an opportunity for input. Second,
the rule circumvents the U.S. Congress by creating de facto wilderness.
Third is an issue regarding access. In order to combat forest health problems
disease, insect infestation and fires there should be access
to these areas.
In Idaho alone, there were 40 hearings responds EarthJustices
Todd True, who also points out that the type of land protection afforded
the roadless areas is very different from wilderness areas, and that there
are exemptions in the roadless rule for fire suppression.
EarthJustice, an intervenor in the Boise-Cascade case and another legal
challenge to the rule, sees the administration supporting Boises
position. Instead of defending the rule in court, the Bush administration
has offered to further suspend the rule in exchange for time to file its
response to Boise Cascades motion for a preliminary injunction.
In three hearings in the Boise case, the administration has failed to
defend the rule. The judge in the case said he would not grant the temporary
injunction until the administration commented on the case.
To date, the Bush administration has used the administrative process
to delay the rule, and now seems willing, through its own neglect, to
have the rule overturned in court. But in May, the administration will
have to either state its opposition to the rule and overwhelming
public sentiment or agree to defend the rule in court.
Ned Daly is the forests policy director at the
Consumers Choice Council.
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