Here we go again. Now,
Rep. Walden (R-OR) has introduced legislation to hurry up logging on public land. Yet another giveaway folks. Are you getting it yet? This is another Republican environmental 'solution' in need of a problem.
The details are this:
Walden has introduced this legislation to sweep aside environmental safeguards and requirements for public involvement of logging projects on federal forests following fires and other natural disturbances. His bill opens the door to logging of old growth forests and in roadless areas, while diverting limited Forest Service staff time and resources needed to protect homes and communities from fire risks.
Typical Republican thinking. Throw the hen house open to the fox while the house burns down.
Walden claims that these radical new authorities are needed in the event of catastrophes (lie him?). But, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth (a forest industry lackey himself) testified before Rep. Walden's Forest Subcommittee on October 7th that no new authorities were needed by the agency to remove trees damaged and blown down by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Again, here we got a 'solution' looking for a problem.
This bill is nothing but a timber industry wet dream that removes essential checks and balances to open public forests to widespread logging.
Take a look at the bill here:
http://forestpress.mediatools.org/...
Here are some details (thanks to the United Forest Defense Campaign):
· It creates a rubber stamp process for logging and road building following fire or other natural events, by requiring the agencies to adopt a list of "pre-approved management practices" including logging and road building that can be implemented with a minimum of public review and oversight.
· Exempts logging and road building projects of an unlimited size within the "recovery area" from the normal requirements of public involvement and environmental analysis required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This is part of an ongoing assault by the Congress on NEPA and the principle of public involvement that it embodies.
· Fails to exempt old growth forests or roadless areas from logging and road building putting these national treasures at risk.
· Provides no new money and allows the diversion of fire protection and reforestation funding to pay for logging projects and road building.
· Threatens endangered wildlife by removing key protections of the Endangered Species Act requiring that the Forest Service consult with federal wildlife experts regarding the potential effects of logging on threatened or endangered species before timber sales are undertaken. Instead, the Walden bill allows consideration of endangered species to be delayed until after the logging is completed -- an analysis that will obviously be of no value to our nation's most imperiled wildlife.
Promoting a rubber-stamp, wet dream process for logging is a misguided solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Fires are a natural part of forest ecosystems which have the proven ability to naturally regenerate as Yellowstone National Park has shown. Burned forests arre also an important role by providing a specialized habitat for many plant and wildlife species, particularly birds. Some recent studies indicate that as many as 150 species of birds, mammals and other wildlife in the Pacific Northwest make homes in burned forests!!!
Fires do not destroy forests. Logging does.
Scientific studies also reveal that logging after fires causes environmental harm and hinders forest recovery. And, due to excessive knee-jerk logging after fires, recovering burned forest is the rarest forest type in the Pacific Northwest.
Another new report I saw earlier this week by the American Lands Alliance shows that logging after fires in National Forests causes severe environmental damage, threatening clean water, fish and wildlife, and wouldn't protect communities at-risk from wildfires.
That report is After the Fires: Do No Harm in America's Forests, A Report on the Impacts of Logging on Forest Recovery. Its good. It summarizes the scientific literature to date on the ecological impacts of post-fire logging on America's forests, and the drain on American taxpayers and future generations. The report is available at http://www.americanlands.org
The Biscuit burn area in southwest Oregon and Yellowstone National Park after the 1988 fires, demonstrate the ability of forests and wildlife to bounce back quickly. Scientific studies of these places show forest recovery has been surprisingly quick with abundant tree seedlings sprouting from the ashes within a few years. A fact sheet on natural recovery at Yellowstone National Park is available at http://forestpress.mediatools.org/...
Richard Fairbanks, a recently-retired forester and team leader for the controversial Biscuit post-fire logging sale in Oregon's Siskiyou National Forest says:
"The federal government typically spends more money on preparation, road maintenance, slash, clean-up and planting than it receives for post-fire logging sales. This is money being wasted that could be spent protecting homes and communities from fires."
What folks in the forest-urban interface need is not to waste limited resources on money-losing logging projects under the guise of "restoration," but to increase protection from wildfires by thinning around homes and in the urban/wildlands interface. Instead of working in partnership with local fire protection efforts, Rep. Walden's bill gives federal bureaucrats cart blanche to make logging big trees in the backcountry the new priority.
Yet something else we need to fight. I wonder if my Rep. is getting tired of me called every damn day.
House Switchboard : 202-224-3121
Tell your Reps. NOT to support this bill. Tell them to fight it. Also, send an LTE to your local paper outlining what a bad deal this is.