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PRESIDENT SIGNS WILDFIRE COMPROMISE
INTO LAW
Law will protect communities from catastrophic
wildfires, restore unhealthy forests, preserve old growth forests
and public involvement
December 3, 2003
Washington, DC – President
Bush today signed into law the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, legislation
based largely upon the Senate wildfire compromise bill brokered by
U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Larry
Craig (R-Idaho) and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). Only minor aspects of the
new law differ from the compromise legislation that passed the Senate
on Oct. 30. Following Senate passage, Wyden and Feinstein worked with
U.S. Representatives Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), Greg Walden (R-Ore.),
Scott McInnis (R-Colo.), and Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) to break an impasse
and bring the final legislation to the president’s desk.
“The signing
of this forest bill into law shows what can be accomplished when all
sides are willing to put aside partisanship and do what is best for
communities threatened by deadly and destructive wildfires,” said
Wyden. “For the first time, this new law protects old growth
forests while providing substantial support for hazardous fuels reduction.”
Two prominent voices
from the environmental community endorsed the Senate-based wildfire
bill compromise last month. In letters to Wyden, Andy Stahl, Executive
Director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEE)
and Jerry Franklin, a professor at the University of Washington College
of Forest Resources, urged conferees to adopt the House-Senate (Senate-based)
compromise version of the wildfire bill (H.R. 1904). That version was
adopted by the conference committee without change.
“On balance,
it is the opinion of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics
that the compromise version of H.R. 1904 will better promote the restoration
of healthy forests while protecting the public’s right to participate
in forest management and the judiciary’s role in ensuring accountability
than would the House bill,” Stahl wrote. “We urge the conferees
to adopt the compromise without further change.”
“I am writing
to state my strong support for the compromise on Title I of the Healthy
Forests Restoration Act of 2003,” Franklin wrote. “[T]he
Senate amendments [of] Title I to H.R. 1904 as passed by the House
of Representatives were essential to creating a bill that would be
the basis of doing good, rather than harm, to our forest lands. The
provision of language directing the restoration of characteristic old-growth
forest structure and retention of large, old trees was one of those
essential additions that the Senate amendments provide.”
The new law
will:
·Preserve 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 will 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).
Provide 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 under these new authorities.
· 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.
Restore balance to healthy forests legislation
· The compromise authorizes $760 million annually for these projects – 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 are to be spent to safeguard communities which face the greatest risks from fire.
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