Senate Sees Light on Wildfires,
Approves
Wyden-Feinstein Forest Compromise
Senators vote 80-14 to protect communities
from catastrophic forest fires, restore unhealthy forests, preserve
old growth forests and public involvement
October 30, 2003
Washington, DC – The U.S.
Senate today approved a bipartisan compromise on healthy forests
legislation brokered by Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Sen. Dianne
Feinstein (D-Calif.), Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Sen. Larry
Craig (R-Idaho) and others. The compromise will streamline restorative
forestry in at-risk and unhealthy forests while preserving public
input, protecting old growth, and reining in provisions of wildfire
legislation approved earlier by the U.S. House of Representatives.
“This balanced compromise
provides an opportunity to protect communities from the catastrophic
fires we’ve seen in California, Oregon and throughout the
West, boost rural economies, and protect old growth forests for
future generations,” Wyden said.
The agreement approved by the
Senate accomplishes the following:
Preserves all current opportunities
for public input and appeal, while streamlining the appeals process
and eliminating some of its worst abuses
· The compromise will
require the Forest Service to rewrite their appeals process using
the pre-decisional appeals and comment process that has been used
by the Bureau of Land Management since 1984. It works by encouraging
the public to engage in a collaborative process with the agency
to improve projects before final decisions have been rendered
upon them by the agency. This model places a premium on constructive
public input and collaboration, and less emphasis on the litigation
and confrontation of the post-decisional appeals process currently
used by the Forest Service.
· Not one current opportunity
for public comment would be lost under the compromise.
· The compromise is designed
to move from the current model of confrontation, litigation and
delay to one which places a premium on constructive, good faith
public input. Whereas in the past, parties could “sandbag”
the appeals process by not raising salient points in hopes of
later derailing the entire proposed action in the courts, parties
would not be allowed to litigate on issues they had failed to
raise in the comment or appeal period unless those issues arose
after the close of the appeals process (as a result of the revised
agency decision).
Provides the first-ever statutory
recognition and meaningful protection of old growth forests
· Never before has Congress
recognized by statute the importance of maintaining old growth
stands. Under the compromise, the Forest Service must protect
these trees by preventing the agency from logging the most fire-resilient
trees under the guise of fuels reduction.
· Where old growth stands
are healthy, as they are throughout much of the forest on the
west side of the Cascade Ridge in Oregon, the compromise requires
that they be “fully maintained.”
· The compromise makes
it less likely that old growth will be harvested under current
law by mandating the retention of large trees and focusing the
hazardous fuels reduction projects authorized by this bill on
thinning small diameter trees.
· The compromise makes
it less likely that old growth will be harvested in the future
by mandating that older forest plans be revised to protect old
growth before the agencies can use the new authorities created
by this bill to reduce hazardous fuels in the forests.
· The compromise provides
no new authority to log old growth, and avoids exempting any environmental
law.
Restores balance to healthy
forests legislation
· The compromise authorizes
increased federal funding for these projects from $0 in the House
to $760 million annually. This would mean a $340 million authorized
increase over the currently appropriated level of $420 million
for hazardous fuel reduction projects.
· The compromise adds
a requirement that at least 50 percent of funds spent on restorative
projects to be spent to safeguard communities which face the greatest
risks from fire. H.R. 1904 included no requirement that funds
would be dedicated to the wildland urban interface areas.
The Senate-approved legislation,
including the Wyden-Feinstein compromise, must now be reconciled
with forest legislation approved by the House of Representatives
before moving to the President’s desk for his signature.
“I want to make
it clear that an unraveling of this compromise by the House of
Representatives will quickly erode the Democratic support Senator
Feinstein and I were able to bring to the table to get this bill
through the Senate,” said Wyden. “I am very hopeful
that the House of Representatives will accept this balanced approach
and avoid the sort of partisan gridlock that has defeated this
legislation in years past.”
Also instrumental in crafting
the bipartisan agreement were Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.),
Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.),
Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho).
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