PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Bush and Co.'s next attack
by Becky Franz Friday, Dec. 20, 2002 at 7:20 AM
thingrnline@msn.com 412-264-2294 1894 Beechford Ave

An article describing Bush's latest attack on our national forests

Letter to the Editor:

The 155 National Forests of the United States are collectively owned by us, the people. But you would never this by the way Bush and Co. are vigorously working to appease their timber buddies by trying to dismantle the laws that make it inconvenient for the timber industry to pillage our forests. For example the Bush Administration recently announced their intention to change or essentially gut the 1976 National Forest Management Act. The NFMA requires that the Forest Service write up a forest plan every 15 years on how the forest will be managed.

However, the proposed changes to the NFMA would exempt the Forest Service from conducting environmental impact statements when adopting or revising forest plans. And as the Forest Service begins its forest plan revision for Pennsylvania's only and not to mention the already most endangered National Forest, the Allegheny, in January, we the people would have minimal information about the Forest Service proposals making it much more difficult if not nearly impossible to assess the environmental impacts to the forest. Then without having the proper information the public if they choose to comment are required to cite specific laws, regulations, or policies. This takes away our basic right to comment considering that most of us are not lawyers. And then if we do pile through reams of law books in order to comment and decide we don't approve of the forest plan, we aren't allowed to appeal.

And for the 66 percent of us Americans that believe that our National Forests should be managed in a way that promotes forest health and not forest destruction through logging and oil and gas extraction, we are probably going to be even more dismayed to find that the proposed changes would:

-eliminate the requirement to maintain viable populations of native wildlife populations;
-eliminate the requirement that forest planners meet with a panel of scientists when drafting management plans;
-eliminate the requirement that projects be monitored leaving that to local discretion;
-give equal consideration to logging and other extractive activities.

It's no coincidence that these changes seem to match almost perfectly with the American Forest and Paper Association's recommendations to congressional testimony. And it's also no surprise then that these proposals would come from Mark Rey, who currently oversees the forest service, and was once vice-president of forest resources for the AFPA from '92-'94.

Perhaps Bush and Co. have forgotten that public lands belong to the people and not Boise Cascade or Pacific Lumber. It's time to give the title public lands back its true meaning, but it seems the Bush direction is heading us the other way turning public lands into corporate lands.

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