Wildfire Bill Goes From Bad To Worse HR 1904 Expands Logging
August 15, 2003
The Senate Agriculture Committee made a bad wildfire bill even worse in April by further gutting environmental protections for commercial logging in National Forests. The Senate is expected to vote on HR 1904, deceptively named the "Healthy Forests Restoration Act", based on the Bush Administration's misguided forest policy, in September.
Rather than increasing funding and resources to protect communities from wildfires or preserving the right of the public to have say in the management of their National Forests, the Committee simply made it easier for timber corporations to log old-growth trees and make a profit off of public lands.
The Committee added language to the bill--HR 1904--to expand the areas where destructive logging can take place without environmental review or oversight. Under a new provision, timber companies could receive taxpayer subsidies to log anywhere in National Forests hit by an ice storm. The bill seriously erodes the public's right to participate in decisions about public land management, and interferes with the independent judiciary by restricting the public's democratic right to seek redress on grievances with the federal government for damaging projects. HR 1904 also jeopardizes forest jobs by creating more controversy and gridlock.
That these provisions protect homes from wildfires is a farce. A May 2003 General Accounting Office report showed that two of every three acres of federal lands logged in the past two years were outside of the "wildland-urban interface", the area where communities and forest areas intersect. Scientific studies have shown that the best way to protect communities is to thin small trees and brush from around homes and buildings, not by logging large, fire resistant trees deep in national forests. The 191 million acres that comprise our national forest system is the best wildlife habitat in the US for over 3,000 fish and wildlife species and 10,000 plants. In fact, more than one quarter of the nation's imperiled species are found in our national forests.
Please ask your Senator to oppose HR 1904. The Senate re-convenes Sept. 2.
You can get more info from the National Forest Protection Alliance at
919) 933-2959 or www.forestadvocate.org
