[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15035]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         ROADLESS RULE ROLLBACK

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, people who care about the environment 
were heartened 2 weeks ago when the administration declared that it 
would uphold the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. But alas, the other 
shoe dropped.
  Last week, the administration proposed exempting Alaska's national 
forests from the roadless rule, reopening them to logging and 
roadbuilding. Even more troubling, the administration will also turn 
over significant authority over our Federal forests to the States, 
allowing governors to provide for exemptions.
  Allowing States to exempt themselves from our national environmental 
laws is not a healthy precedent. States have a mixed record when it 
comes to environmental stewardship. They are too often overwhelmed by 
understandable local interest from snowmobiles to timber to water. We 
need a strong presence. These are, after all, our national forests.
  Rather than the administration's vigorous enforcement of 
environmental laws, this is another example of a settlement to further 
erode, rather than strengthen and uphold. There are about 50 pending 
timber sales in roadless areas in Alaska currently protected under the 
roadless rule that are ready to go forward when the Tongass exemption 
is finalized.
  Despite the assurances that 95 percent of the Alaska's forests will 
be protected, the remaining 5 percent allows hundreds of thousands of 
acres which are among the most valuable for both the timber companies 
and the environment. This roadless conservation rule was developed 
during the last 3 years of the Clinton administration. It was finalized 
after the most extensive public outreach process in history. Six 
hundred public hearings and more than 1.6 million official comments 
overwhelmingly in support of this initiative.
  The rule protects 58\1/2\ million acres of pristine national forests 
in 39 States. In my State alone, in Oregon, 2 million acres would have 
been protected.
  The independent editorial boards around the country have zeroed in. 
In The New York Times, it pointed out that this is part of a continued 
assault on environmental protections. From day one, the Bush 
administration has sought to unravel the intricate tapestry of rules 
and regulations that have shielded the national forests from excessive 
logging and other commercial activities.
  In the last 6 months alone, the administration has finalized or 
proposed new rules that would short-circuit environmental reviews, 
restrict public participation in land-use decisions, and weaken 
safeguards for endangered species.
  The administration's latest target is the roadless rule. The San 
Franciso Chronicle pointed out the administration's pattern of 
disingenuousness. The Bush administration's doublespeak about the 
environment reached a new level of shamelessness this week when it 
announced it was retaining the roadless rule and then an announcement 
that it would prohibit logging on 95 percent of Alaska's national 
forest. Let none be fooled. What the Bush administration did was carve 
out huge exceptions and loopholes through a thoroughly vetted and well-
balanced, popularly-supported plan to protect the ever shrinking swath 
of untrampled national forests.
  In the Boston Globe last week, National forests are called that 
because they belong to the Nation as a whole, not the governors, and 
certainly not to the administration in Washington, who has put a former 
timber lobbyist in charge of them.
  The Minneapolis Star Tribune, the administration's version of the 
roadless rule for the National forests to be published later this 
month, is portrayed by its authors as a fine tuning of what was 
arguably the Clinton administration's most important wilderness 
initiative. Right. It strains credibility for Clinton's successors 
having relentlessly assailed the rule, to claim that they are now 
prepared to accept it with minor modifications. Indeed, there is 
nothing minor about the modifications the Interior Department outlined. 
Fine tuning with such changes is akin to edging a lawn with a chain 
saw. Edging a lawn with a chain saw. Not fine tuning.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people and their forests deserve better.

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