KNOWLES SAID in a statement that the new
policy, which limits development in large roadless
areas of national forests, should not take effect in
the two Alaska forests because other management
plans had already been approved.
“Alaskans are
tired of being double-crossed by the federal
government with false promises of public involvement
that are subsequently overturned by executive policy
actions from Washington,” Knowles said.
In the largest
change in land status in U.S. history, Clinton on
Friday approved a new regulation that eventually
puts nearly 60 million acres of U.S. forest off
limits to road construction, logging and oil
drilling. Some 58.5 million acres in 38 states,
nearly one-third of all national forests, are
covered. Included immediately in the road ban are
federal lands like Pagoda Peak in Colorado, the
American Rivers’ North Fork in California, and the
South Quinault Ridge in Washington state. In 2004,
Alaska’s Tongass National Forest will be added to
the list.
“I am
directing my attorney general to file suit against
this illegal and ill-advised executive fiat to
preserve the integrity of the planning process,”
he said.
Knowles said
the 17 million-acre Tongass, the largest U.S.
national forest, should be exempted from the policy
because it was the subject of an exhaustive
management review that did not recommend a ban on
new roads. |
The Tongass management plan was completed in
1999 after 10 years of study and public comment, and
Knowles said he supported that process.
The Tongass,
encompassing rain-soaked islands, coastline,
mountains and glaciers in southeast Alaska, has long
been the subject of intense debate. The timber
industry values the large spruce, hemlock and cedar
trees in the rain forest, while environmentalists
prize the region’s biological diversity.
Debate has been
much less heated over the 6 million acre Chugach in
southcentral Alaska, the second largest U.S. forest
but a site of little logging. Knowles said it, too,
should be exempted from the roadless policy because
its latest management plan was now being written.
TIMBER
INDUSTRY APPLAUDS SUIT
“There’s a
tremendous amount of support for what the
governor’s doing,” said Jack Phelps, executive
director of the Alaska Forest Association, a
timber-industry group based in Ketchikan.
If the roadless
policy goes into effect, Phelps said, the amount of
timber available to the industry after five to seven
years would be 50 million board feet a year from the
Tongass, well below the industry’s needs of at
least 200 million board feet a year to keep its
mills running.
It was a view
in sharp contrast to that of Alaska’s
environmentalists. Matthew Davidson, a campaigner
for the Juneau-based Southeast Alaska Conservation
Council, said logging roads in the Tongass have
already caused a lot of environmental damage, as
well as financial loss to the U.S. Forest Service.
“This is the
Forest Service recognizing that it has a lot of
trouble managing the roads it already has,”
Davidson said.
He disputed
Knowles’ assertion that the roadless plan was
imposed without sufficient public comment, pointing
to the public support seen at 13 public hearings
held in Alaska over the proposal.
|
NO
COMMENT FROM BUSH
Bush officials
on Friday took note of the proposal, which Clinton
first announced more than a year ago, but only in
the briefest sense.
“It is the
president’s prerogative to do as he sees fit,”
Bush transition spokesman Ari Fleischer said without
specifically mentioning the road ban. “We will not
comment on some of these last-minute executive
orders that he is pursuing.”
Still, he
added: “We will review each and every one of them.
We are taking note of them.”
Bush Interior
Department nominee Gail Norton, a Denver lawyer, was
quick to criticize the rule: “The West was
concerned about those decisions, in large part,
because there was no consultation with the people
whose lives were most affected by land withdrawals
by the Clinton administration.”
Under the new
regulation, road construction and repairs and timber
harvest would be banned in undeveloped areas, unless
necessary for environmental reasons or to reduce the
risk of wildfires. Commercial timber contracts
already in the government pipeline will be allowed
to go through. In some cases that could amount to
continued logging for another six to seven years at
today’s harvesting rates.
Environmental
groups had eagerly awaited the final rule. “This
is a significant victory,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld,
spokeswoman for the U.S. Public Interest Research
Group. “We are glad to see the Clinton
administration has responded to the overwhelming
public mandate in protecting our national
forests.”
Environmentalists,
like the Clinton administration, argue that the
logging industry won’t be hit hard by the rule
since the federal lands covered by the ban account
for only a small percentage of all timber taken from
government-owned land.
REVERSAL
OF POLICY? |
That is not a view generally shared by
incoming Bush officials. At least three paths exist
for opponents to block or at least sidetrack the
rule:
Bush could instruct the U.S. Forest Service to
ignore or delay implementation. During the campaign,
he vowed to review Clinton administration land
policies.
Court battles are certain, given what logging and
mining interests have said and the billions of
dollars in natural resources locked up by the road
ban.
Congress might use a never-invoked 1996 law that
allows lawmakers to rescind a regulation within 60
days.
Any path Bush
might choose would be tortuous. Attempts to rescind
the rule would require the Forest Service to repeat
the lengthy public review process needed before
Friday’s announcement. Should he try to ignore it,
environmentalists would sue. Court battles will
include inevitable appeals, and Democratic lawmakers
have vowed to fight to protect the rule in Congress.
Still, critics
argue that Clinton is simply wants this as part of
his legacy — while ignoring its impact. They
insist it will increase wildfire risks, cost jobs,
hurt local economies, and block oil and natural gas
drilling. Energy companies have already been
complaining that they are blocked on too many
federal lands in the western United States.
Utah Republican
Rep. James Hansen, who took over as head of the
House Resources Committee in the new Congress, wrote
a letter of appeal to Bush last week calling some of
Clinton’s environmental polices “misguided”
and “absurd.”
Bush allies
such as Hansen have raised fears of environmental
groups that the White House will sound a sharp
retreat on land-preservation policies.
“It seems
like it’s going to be open season on the
environment,” said Friends of the Earth spokesman
Mark Helm.
The group is
worried Bush may issue a moratorium on implementing
several long-pending environmental rules the Clinton
administration has hurried to finalize in recent
weeks. In addition to the forest road ban, these
include stricter energy efficiency standards for
appliances and a new EPA rule to force a 95 percent
cut in the amount of sulfur emissions in diesel
fuel, an action likely to be challenged in court.
|
Though green groups generally support Bush’s
nomination of Christine Todd Whitman, a New Jersey
Republican, to head the Environmental Protection
Agency, they are readying to fight Bush’s
appointments of Norton as interior secretary and
former Michigan senator Spencer Abraham as energy
secretary.
Norton and
Abraham have helped lead efforts to allow drilling
in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a
controversial idea that is the centerpiece of
Bush’s national energy policy.
Abraham also
co-sponsored legislation in the Senate to abolish
the Energy Department. Norton worked as a lawyer at
the Interior Department in the mid-1980s when it was
headed by then-controversial Interior secretary
James Watt. |
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