Bush administration to ease forest management rules
Date: 29-Nov-02
Country: USA
Author: Christopher Doering
The wide-ranging proposal is likely to trigger a new round of skirmishing between the Bush administration and green groups over how much access loggers, miners and oil and gas drilling companies should have to federal forests.
In a 90-page Forest Service document obtained by Reuters, the agency said it aimed to improve existing rules by "eliminating unnecessary procedural detail, clarifying intended results and streamlining procedural requirements consistent with agency staffing, funding and skill levels."
The agency said managing federal forests involves balancing needs for recreation, flood and wildfire prevention, and oil and gas drilling.
A Forest Service spokesman was not immediately available to comment. The agency has scheduled a news conference later this week to release its proposal.
Environmental groups said the new plan would gut the 1976 National Forest Management Act that required the agency to determine land-use plans for each of the country's 155 national forests, according to environmental activists.
It would also weaken a provision that requires the Forest Service to monitor and maintain sensitive species that live in forests, the groups said.
Under the new rules, the Forest Service would no longer be required to prepare environmental impact statements when it revises its forest plans, according to a Democratic congressional aide. The public would be given just 60 days to comment on changes to forest management plans, a drop from the current 135 days.
"They're seeking to do this on a holiday because they know it's bad," the aide said.
During a rash of forest fires earlier this year, the Bush administration blamed environmental groups' lawsuits for blocking plans to remove heavy undergrowth of brush and trees that serve as fuel to spread wildfires. Green groups said the efforts to thin federal forests were merely an attempt to remove older trees coveted by timber companies.
The administration has also been criticized for halting a Clinton-era plan to ban roadbuilding on nearly 60 million acres (24 million hectares) of forest land. That plan was a blow to U.S. timber, mining and oil companies, which cannot move heavy equipment or remove resources without roads.
