Bush Unleashes Full-Force Siege on America's National Forests!!

Bush Re-Writes Forest Planning Rules, Cuts out Scientists

By Jim Kleissler

The National Forest Management Act (NFMA) is the single most imprtant law overseeing management of America's 155 national forests. This law established that biological diversity must be maintained for each national forest, that national forests may not be managed primarily for economic returns, that conservation of soils and watersheds would not be compromised by timbering, and that public participation and environmental analyses processes under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) would apply to forest planning.

About Forest Management Plans

Under the NFMA, each national forest must prepare a forest management plan, aka. "Forest Plan", which dictates how that forest will be managed until the plan is revised (every 10 to 15 years). Forest plans dictate which areas are protected from logging, what types of measures are in place to protect soils, and how the U.S. Forest Service will manage for threatened and endangered species. The plans are developed through a slow, deliberative process involving public hearings and the development of environmental impact statements.

The NFMA requires that the Forest Service write regulations that provide specific guidance for the development of forest plans consistent with the law's requirements for biological diversity, soil and watershed conservation, and limitations on the use of even-aged logging techniques such as clearcutting. The 1986 forest plan for the Allegheny was written under planning regulations adopted in 1982. These rules remained in place until 2000 when the Clinton administration adopted new rules for implementation of the NFMA. These rules incorporated recommendations made by a committee of scientists which convened in the 1990s and prepared a lengthy report on forest planning.

Shortly after the Bush presidency began, his administration issued an order unilaterally stopping implementation of the 2000 rules. Now, over a year later, the Bush administration has proposed new rules which could result in a forest plan being developed without public hearings, without any kind of environmental analysis, without mandatory guidelines for protecting wildlife or for conserving soils and watersheds, and without the input of the committee of scientists.

Local "Discretion"

If one wishes to make a legal requirement optional they often do so by increasing the amount of discretion that can be used in implementing that requirement. Discretion is supposed to be allowed where it is not feasible to provide more standardized guidance across all national forests. The Bush administation, however, wants local supervisors and regional foresters to have discretion on issues that have uniform importance across the entire national forest system.

For example, under the 2000 rules it has been generally accepted that new forest plans, revisions of forest plans, and large amendments to forest plans require preparation of environmental impact statements. The new rules provide no new guidance on when these statements must be prepared but clearly allow that new forest plans and revision of forest plans can be done without preparation of environmental impact statement. This change is significant because much of the public disclosure and debate over forest planning occurs through the process of developing these statements. The result is that the U.S. Forest Service can all but shut out the public from participating in the development and revision of forest plans while they simultaneously churn out forest plans calling for unprecedented logging levels without documenting the likely environmental impacts.

Too Much Science?

The Bush administration complains that the 2000 regulations required too much involvement of scientists. Therefore, the new rules intentionally roll back requirements established to ensure that scientists would have a greater role in future forest planning. This ensures that logging and oil industries will win out over sound science.

Logging Loopholes

Under changes to the NFMA regulations, projects planned on national forests no longer need to comply with the Forest Plans. Previous rules required that projects be "consistent" with Forest Plans. The result is that even when limitations on logging are adopted, the Forest Service can ignore those limitations based upon their "discretion".

Another major change is the establishment of a loophole that would allow logging anywhere on a national forest if it is the result of a "natural catastrophe". This is a major expansion of an existing loophole which has been abused for years to justify logging in environmentally sensitive areas. Taken together, these two changes open the door for logging without limits on our national forests.

Bio-diversity

The new rules do everything they can to convert mandatory legal requirements for maintaing bio-diversity into meaningless processes that apply only to some species and only when the U.S. Forest Service applies their discretion. These new rules are taken almost verbatim from language proposed by the American Forest and Paper Association.

Act Now!!

The Bush rules outlined in this article are only the tip of the iceberg in a broad attempt to rollback the requirements of the National Forest Management Act! Please take the time to write in public comments and tell the Bush's cronies what you think:

USDA FS Planning Rule Content Analysis Team

PO Box 8359

Missoula, MT 59807

planning_rule@fs.fed.us

Comments due March 6, 2003!