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House passes bill to speed post fire timber sales { May 18 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/18/MNGGDITQ6F1.DTLhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/18/MNGGDITQ6F1.DTL
House passes bill to speed OK of post-fire timber sales
Managers could use generic guidelines
- Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Washington -- The Republican-led House approved a bill Wednesday to speed up logging projects after forest fires despite complaints by some Democrats and environmentalists that the legislation would limit environmental review of the potential harm to wildlife and forest health.
The bill could have a major effect in California, which has 20 million acres of national forests and has been the site of several large post-fire timber sales that have been fought over in the courts in recent years.
Forest managers and timber companies have long argued that environmental reviews can lead to delays of months or years in logging fire-damaged trees, which can then rot and lose much of their value as timber.
"There are valuable stands of timber there that could be harvested to help pay for the recovery effort," Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., the chief sponsor of the measure, said Wednesday.
But environmentalists and other critics said the bill's main goal is to allow forest supervisors to skip the exhaustive analysis of timber sales on public lands required by the National Environmental Policy Act.
"Giving unbridled discretion to political appointees may sit well with the Bush administration and its supporters in industry, but it doesn't bode well for the management of the forests," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., who opposed the bill.
The bill passed 243-182, with 41 Democrats joining the GOP majority in passing the bill. Twenty-six Republicans voted against the measure.
A similar bill has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., but even supporters acknowledge they face a more difficult fight in the closely divided Senate, especially in an election year.
The bill approved Wednesday by the House would require the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to come up with "pre-approved management practices" -- generic guidelines for timber sales -- that could be put into effect immediately after a fire, insect infestation, storm or other major disaster.
The bill also would require forest managers to come up with a plan within 30 days for how much timber to sell, which would be followed by a 90-day public comment period. The measure would not limit court challenges to timber sales.
Critics said the bill is unnecessary because forest managers already have significant leeway to carry out expedited reviews of timber sales after fires or other disasters.
The Healthy Forests Restoration Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in December 2003 after huge wildfires in Southern California, contained several provisions to accelerate the review process for logging projects aimed at lowering the fire risk.
Democrats noted that the Forest Service moved quickly after Hurricane Katrina last year to propose the sale of 676 million board feet of timber from storm-damaged forests in Mississippi.
"In reality, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have an abundance of existing authority that allows for timber salvage to be completed on our public lands, with the appropriate checks and balances," said Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M.
Currently, 34 percent of the timber cut on national forests is logged as part of a salvage project. In California, about half of all timber harvested last year -- 253 million board feet -- was cut as part of a salvage project, mostly after wildfires.
The Society of American Foresters, the largest group of professional foresters in the country, backed the bill, saying it offered the "necessary steps to enable forest managers to quickly recover and reforest after catastrophic events."
But a group of 169 scientists wrote Congress to oppose the bill, saying post-fire logging can damage soils, cause erosion that affects streams, and leave behind tons of small debris that can increase the fire risk.
"Although logging and replanting may seem like a reasonable way to clean up and restore forests after disturbances like wildland fires, such activity would actually slow the natural recovery of forests and of streams and creatures within them," the scientists wrote.
Environmentalists often use the extensive scientific analysis required by the National Environmental Policy Act as a basis to file lawsuits to block post-fire timber sales. They say the new bill would allow the Forest Service to begin logging before the effects on wildlife or forest health have been fully studied.
"The Forest Service can say, 'Here are our reasons. Trust us,' " said Chad Hanson, director of the John Muir Project, which has opposed many post-fire timber sales in California. "They can state conclusions even if stacks of scientific evidence flatly contradict those reasons."
But sponsors of the bill said forest managers still would have to release a detailed environmental analysis to the public, including the potential effects of logging on water quality in streams and on endangered species.
"If the agency fails to comply with all these things prescribed in this law, they can be sued ... these projects can be halted," Walden said.
E-mail Zachary Coile at zcoile@sfchronicle.com.
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