On June 9, 2003, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) announced that it would allow logging in wild portions of America's two largest national forests, the Tongass and the Chugach. Under the plan, undeveloped, roadless areas in national forests across the country could also be opened to logging and road building.
The move threatens millions of acres of wild places held dear by Americans, including 300,000 acres of centuries-old trees in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, habitat for eagles, wolves and brown bear.
But even as the USFS moves to gut the roadless area protection rule, a bipartisan group in the Congress has introduced legislation to codify it and to permanently protect over 58 million acres of spectacular roadless land across the country.
The Forest Service announcement was made by Mark Rey, former timber industry lobbyist who is now the Undersecretary of Agriculture in charge of the U.S. Forest Service
Rey said the Forest Service will write new regulations to let governors seek exemptions to the roadless rule across the national forest system. The move undermines the roadless conservation rule, which had set aside 58.5 million acres of remaining wild places on our national forests.
That will drastically change the status of our national forests. Today, they are places prized for their wildlife habitat, clean drinking water, opportunities for recreation and solitude. Under the Rey proposal, these forests will become pawns to the short-term economic urges of individual states and the timber industry.
The landmark Roadless Area Conservation Rule was set in place by the Clinton Administration in January 2001, after two years of study and unprecedented public involvement. It placed off limits to most logging and road-building 58.5 million acres of roadless lands on our national forests.
Public comment on the proposed rule set records: over 1.6 million Americans weighed in on behalf of roadless area protection. Public enthusiasm for the rule was matched only by opposition from the timber industry. The industry quickly brought suit against the rule. Though the Bush Administration refused to defend the rule against the industry challenge, a federal appeals court upheld it. But before 2001 was out, Rey's Forest Service issued its own temporary directive to supplant the roadless protection rule.
The Alaska Clause
Alaska's rainforests, the Tongass and the Chugach, are respectively the nation's largest and second largest national forests: the Tongass encompasses 17 million acres, the Chugach 5 million. Together, they account for around a quarter of the roadless acreage the conservation rule was designed to protect.
The State of Alaska sued to block the roadless protection rule, which halted agency plans to clearcut 175 million board feet annually from the roadless areas on the Tongass. Under the terms of the so-called "settlement," the Forest Service will go through the formality of drafting a short-term rule for Tongass roadless areas over the summer months. It will also propose a separate rule permanently exempting both the Chugach and the Tongass, scheduled to take effect by the end of this year.
Alaska conservationists term the roadless areas on the Tongass the forest's "biological heart" and warn of serious impacts on brown bears, bald eagles, wolves and other species that depend on healthy, old-growth forests for their survival.
While Rey cast the decision as affecting only 300,000 roadless acres on the Tongass, he conceded under reporters' questioning that it could end up extending to fully 2.5 million acres of roadless old growth on the Tongass.
The Governors' Loophole
For all the forests outside Alaska, the Forest Service proposes to give the governors of each state the power to request special "waivers of the roadless rule." Such waivers could be granted for road building and logging to reduce "hazardous fuels" or to "restore essential wildlife habitat," among other reasons.
Creating this loophole for governor-requested exemption would totally undermine the purpose and effect of the roadless rule. Proponents of timber sales in roadless areas could obtain waivers from the rule's prohibition simply by obtaining approvals from their governors and Mark Rey.
Sue and Settle
The device Rey invoked to bust open the Tongass roadless areas is part of a now familiar Administration pattern some describe as "sue and settle." The Administration overturned a snowmobile ban in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks to settle industry lawsuit against the ban. It used the same approach to radically change the Northwest Forest Plan. And in another settlement it has offered to surrender to Utah thousands of rights of way to imaginary roads across public lands, urging other western states to follow suit. Each settlement ignores overwhelming public support; each one forecloses additional public participation.
In both the Utah and the roadless cases, the concern is that the true owner of these lands, the American public, is being locked out of key decisions regarding their management.
Rey touted the roadless deal as an effort at "cooperative participation of state governments." That sentiment does not extend to the public at large, though. Last week the Forest Service announced final regulations that will effectively shut the public out of a wide range of national forest decisions: logging, mining, grazing and recreational use, among others. Most logging projects will be flatly exempt from citizen appeal.
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