[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 88 (Monday, June 16, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H5382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ROADLESS RULE ROLLBACK

  (Mr. BLUMENAUER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, people who care about the environment 
were heartened 2 weeks ago when the administration declared they would 
uphold the roadless area conservation rule. But alas, the other shoe 
dropped. Last week the administration announced it would be proposing 
new regulations to exempt Alaska's national forests from the rule, 
reopening them to logging and road-building. More troubling, the 
administration will also turn over significant authority over Federal 
forests to States, allowing governors to apply for exemptions.
  As pointed out by the Boston Globe on June 15, the national forests 
are called that because they belong to the Nation as a whole, not to 
governors, and certainly not to an administration in Washington that 
has put a former timber lobbyist in charge of them. Now the Bush 
administration is doing its best to turn over large sections of the 
forest to timber companies in spite of a Clinton administration rule 
that would have protected them. The result is the largest, most 
extensive rulemaking in United States history is now being undertaken, 
and it is a tragedy.

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