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Environmental Law
Healthy Forests Initiative, or a Sweetheart Deal for the Logging Industry?
The Bush administration, citing a need to prevent forest fires after a summer in which more than 6 million acres have burned in 11 Western states in the United States, proposed in September 2002, legislation that will hasten logging and brush-clearing on 10 million acres of what it defines as high fire-risk federal forest land. Although this program, which Bush dubs the “Healthy Forest Initiative,” seems focused and salutary it may result in abuse by bypassing the current statutes that protect our forests and streamlining or eliminating administrative and court reviews of logging. ...
This most recent initiative is not the first of its kind from President Bush. ... Immediately recognizing that Democrats, who are traditionally united in opposing plans to suspend laws, had broken ranks, President Bush then seized on the opportunity to propose his own “Healthy Forests Initiative. ... The first section, the “Emergency Hazardous Fuels Reduction Plan,” dubbed the “lawless logging” provision by some, would apply to Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management projects “to reduce hazardous fuels” in any “fire risk condition class three area” except congressionally designated Wilderness. ... The other three sections authorize a new form of timber industry handout called “stewardship contracting” (some environmentalists have dubbed the section creating this category “A License to Steal” ), eliminate the Forest Service appeal process established under the Appeals Reform Act of 1993, and attempt to limit the authority of federal courts to enjoin activities it found to be illegal and contrary to statute. ... In other words, a logging company could keep the timber that was cut from the national forests. ... 5319 seizes on this loophole and seeks to place any area of the national forests where there is a risk of fire under its provisions. ... Lawsuits such as the ones noted above may become a thing of the past when it comes to national forests. Challenges to an EIS for forestry logging actions such as have enjoyed success in the past could become quite difficult.
What President Bush’s calls the “Healthy Forests” proposal, whether in the guise of H. ... 5319 or some other bill, will effectively take the teeth out of many of NEPA’s regulatory provisions that protect national forests. ... The “Healthy Forests” proposal, if passed, could therefore become the harbinger of doom for NEPA.
President Bush and the supporters of these measures argue that environmentalist lawsuits have dragged down the process of forestry logging to the point where any agency actions have been quagmired. ... Environmentalists respond that most of these involved routine logging sales.
Approximate Word count = 2137
Approximate Pages = 8.5
(250 words per page double spaced)
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