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The Bush Administration has finalized two key regulatory components of its sweeping "Healthy Forests Initiative", a large complex of legislation, regulation and policy changes which restrict environmental, scientific and public oversight of National Forests - ostensibly to reduce fire hazard.
At the same time the Administration proposed new regulations to reduce protections for federally listed species on National Forests.
Pasted below, find a Los Angeles Times story on the proposals. More information on the Healthy Forests Initiative can be found on the Forest Service web site: http://www.fs.fed.us/projects/HFI.shtml
ACTION:
Write your elected representatives and share your opinions on the Healthy Forests Initiative and on the Administration's policies on science, public input and the environment. Find contact information for your House and Senate representatives by going to www.congress.org and entering your ZIP code.
BACKGROUND
Announced Friday May 30, new Healthy Forest Initiative regulations have been
adopted which:
-limit citizen rights to challenge Forest Service fuels reduction projects which may damage rare species or resources. Under the new rules, appeals time limits would be reduced and new restrictions would be imposed limiting who can appeal such projects.
-use categorical exclusions to virtually eliminate National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements for environmental impact analysis, rigorous scientific examination, and public review of several categories of logging and other fuel reduction projects including (i) up to 1000 acre mechanical treatments, (ii) prescribed burns of up to 4,500 acres, (iii) "post fire
projects" (possibly including salvage logging) up to 4200 ac. Exempted projects are not limited to the so-called urban-wildand interface where wildfire threats to life and property is greatest. They will be allowed on any forest lands, including old forests, where "professional judgement"
determines that fire risk is great.
In addition, the Administration will soon propose new regulations to limit the role of Fish and Wildlife Service scientists in consulting with the Forest Service to avoid impacts to listed species during fuels management projects.
The scientific and conservation communities have voiced strong opposition to the Healthy Forests Initiative (HFI) since it was first announced. Most recently, a Greenpeace/National Forest Protection Alliance report has been released reviewing the scientific and policy flaws in the HFI. Prof. E.O. Wilson authored the foreword to the report. The report can be viewed at
http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/features/endangeredforests.htm
The environmental community is most concerned by the failure of the HFI to concentrate fuels reduction projects and funds in the urban wildland interface where wildfire risks to life and property are greatest. HFI proposals contain no protections for old forests far from inhabited areas. Environmentalists fear that the environmental law exemptions in the HFI will
be used to log the profitable old forests remaining on Forest Service lands, yielding little benefit in increased fire safety.
PART OF LARGER PATTERN?
The regulatory changes and legislative proposals in the Healthy Forest Initiative are consistent with a disturbing pattern that is emerging in the Administration's policies. The Administration's legislative and regulatory changes all tend to include many of the following policy changes:
* Reductions in transparency and public input (e.g. HFI's categorical exclusions from NEPA's public review requirements)
* Reductions in the role of science in planning and decisionmaking (e.g. HFI's NEPA exemptions which also limit scientific analysis of the environmental impacts of fuels projects)
* Movement of funds and resources from public to private control (e.g. easing of restrictions on and substantial subsidies for private logging of publicly owned national forests)
* Reduced standards to protect ecosystem health (e.g. limits on scientific review of potential impacts to listed species during fuels projects)
For information on other planks in the Administration's larger policy agenda affecting native plants and ecosystems, see the NPCC web page www.cnps.org/NPCC click "Make A Difference".
____________________
Emily B. Roberson, Ph.D.
Director
Native Plant Conservation Campaign
1722 J St., Suite 17
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 415 970 0394
E-MAIL: EMILYR@cnps.org
Web: http://www.cnps.org/NPCC
The mission of the NPCC is to promote appreciation and conservation of native plant species and communities through collaboration, education, law, policy, land use and management.
The NPCC is a project of the Center for Biological Diversity and the California Native Plant Society.
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Copyright 2003 The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times

All Rights Reserved
Los Angeles Times

May 31, 2003 Saturday Home Edition

HEADLINE: The Nation;
Juggling Fire Risks and Species' Safety;
Under a Bush proposal, forest managers would not have to ask wildlife
agencies whether a thinning or burn might harm imperiled species.

BYLINE: Elizabeth Shogren, Times Staff Writer

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY:
The Bush administration proposed Friday to let forest managers decide
whether to ask wildlife agencies if a planned thinning or controlled burn
might harm an endangered or threatened species.

The new procedure could shave months off the time it takes to initiate
projects to reduce fire risks or clean forests after fires, officials said.
The administration announced the proposal at the same time it unveiled an
array of other changes aimed at removing bureaucratic and legal hurdles
that it says delay fire-prevention projects.

Environmentalists warned that the proposal involving endangered species
would remove an important check on the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau
of Land Management. They and some Democrats in Congress said the
administration was trying to increase logging in national forests by
avoiding usual environmental reviews and making it harder for citizens and
environmental groups to appeal its actions.

Administration officials said the changes would help them triple the
acreage they are able to treat annually to avoid forest fires. Government
agencies can now treat about 2.5 million acres with thinning projects and
controlled burns.

They spend about $400 million a year and complain that more than one-third
of it pays for preparing environmental analyses and surmounting procedural
barriers such as public appeals and consultations with other agencies.

"We've got to get better at doing this faster and cheaper without losing
the quality of the work," said Mark Rey, undersecretary of Agriculture for
natural resources and environment.

Under current rules, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National
Marine Fisheries Service is consulted whenever a Forest Service or BLM
project is expected to affect an imperiled animal or plant.

Under the new proposal, Forest Service and BLM officials could choose not
to consult a wildlife agency if they decided that their project was "not
likely to adversely affect" any endangered or threatened species.

"This will take what has been a meaningful check and balance by wildlife
agencies and turn it into a rubber stamp by the Forest Service," said
Martin Hayden, a lawyer for Earthjustice, an environmental law firm.

Hayden predicted that under the proposal, consultations with the wildlife
agencies on endangered species would be rare.

Environmentalists said the consultations by the wildlife agencies help
protect imperiled species.

When the Forest Service was planning a recent salvage sale after a fire in
Northern California's Tahoe National Forest, Fish and Wildlife biologists
required the Forest Service to preserve a stand of trees that bald eagles
might use for nests and several dead trees that the eagles used for
perching and hunting, according to Jay Watson, director of the Wilderness
Society's fire program.

"Those additional measures probably would not have been part of the project
had Fish and Wildlife, the experts, not been consulted," he said.

But Rey defended the policy shift, saying that the current procedure
delayed projects unnecessarily for many months.

The new procedure is still subject to change following a public comment
period.

The other changes announced Friday -- in the form of final rules that will
take effect without further modification -- will allow agencies to conduct
thinning projects over as many as 1,000 acres and controlled burns of up to
4,500 acres without the environmental reviews now required.

Under the new rules, individuals and environmental groups will have less
time to appeal projects and the Agriculture secretary or undersecretary for
natural resources can exempt a project from appeals. Also, the government
will be able to move ahead on a logging project that is under appeal if it
can prove that the value of the timber would be reduced during a delay.

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: FIRE FIGHT: The Bush administration says it wants to shave
time off delays on fire prevention projects. Critics say the proposal
removes an important environmental check on forest managers. PHOTOGRAPHER:
Associated Press