The Bush Administration is proposing to gut the Northwest Forest Plan, as the result of a lawsuit filed by the timber industry. Instead of defending the Plan and its sound forest protection measures, the Administration has chosen to quietly settle the lawsuit and acquiesce to the timber industry's demands.

The Northwest Forest Plan was a court-approved plan created in the 1990s as a means to protect old-growth forests on National Forests in the Pacific Northwest.

The Forest Service's proposal would eliminate or greatly reduce wildlife protection in the affected National Forests. The Northwest Forest Plan requires the Forest Service to conduct surveys for rare or protected species, and adjust logging plans to protect those species if they are present. The new proposal would eliminate that requirement, leaving the decision on whether or not to conduct surveys up to Forest Service personnel who are not scientists, and whose primary responsibility is to meet timber goals as opposed to protecting the resources in their charge.

The Forest Service estimates that logging will increase by 15 million board feet over nearly one million acres of land, including 20,000 acres of old-growth forest that had gained protection under the Northwest Forest Plan.