[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15036]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        ALASKAN EXEMPTION FROM ROADLESS AREAS CONSERVATION RULE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Burgess). Pursuant to the order of the 
House of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week the Bush administration 
revised the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and exempted millions of 
acres of forests throughout our country. Included in these revisions 
are areas I recently had the pleasure of visiting, including the 
Tongass and the Chugach National Forests in Alaska, which are now set 
to be turned into the horror of the ``10-Year Tongass Timber Project'' 
which I believe is truly a disaster.
  As a firsthand witness, I have experienced the beauty and the natural 
wonders of these two forests in Alaska. The Tongass and Chugach Forests 
boast the world's most intact rain forests with centuries-old trees 
providing critical habitat for wolves, grizzly bears, wild salmon, bald 
eagles, and other wildlife that have disappeared from many other parts 
of our country.
  In 2001, the roadless rule was drafted and implemented to balance the 
interests of environmental and local labor groups so that a small 
number of timber projects already in progress at that time could be 
completed. Furthermore, at the time the maintenance and reconstruction 
of existing roads was strictly limited to cases of public safety and 
habitat improvement for wildlife, which meant common sense 
environmental regulations were put in place to ensure the health and 
safety of the residences of these areas where they were tended to as 
well as the economic well-being of those individuals.
  Those common sense regulations did not shut down Alaska. They 
protected the lands and the people from mining and timber interests 
that looked to pillage and use the lands for their and not America's 
own needs. However, until now, large scale timber projects, the cutting 
sale and removal of timber from the Tongass Forest has been prohibited.
  This Roadless Area Conservation Rule was created with the tremendous 
outpouring of public support, demonstrated in over 600 public hearings 
that were held around the Nation and with more than 1.6 million 
comments on this rule alone, more than any other rule in the history of 
our Nation.
  Today, in 2003, without public support or comment, the President has 
revised the roadless rule with an unbalanced approach that favors the 
logging and timber interests over America's interests and swings the 
door wide open for commercial logging, roadbuilding, and development on 
58.5 million acres of unroaded national forests nationwide, one quarter 
of which are located in the Tongass and Chugach National Forests.
  This is being done without any public comment, but, again, when has 
the will of the majority of the American people mattered to this 
administration?
  By lifting the roadless rule in these areas, the Bush administration 
will destroy the Tongass and Chugach, the Nation's two largest National 
forests totalling 22 million acres and deprive generations of young 
Americans from their national inheritance of the world's last remaining 
old-growth temperate rainforest.
  Essentially, these two forests are the Amazon of North America. They 
are the last vestiges of pristine wildness. They are treasures that 
require vigilant protection by all Americans. They are the best of what 
we have in Alaska. And yet, the Forest Service has already scheduled 
approximately 50 timber projects in the roadless areas of the Tongass 
National Forest and is set to sell Tongass timber as soon as these 
revisions are finalized.
  To make the situation worse, according to the GAO, these timber sales 
have been subsidized with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. I 
believe that maintaining the roadless rule will protect not only these 
forests in Alaska, but also Federal lands and forests in every State in 
our union.
  As a New Yorker, I fear that the slippery slope will soon lead to 
logging and road construction in the forests of New York State, 
including the wooded areas surrounding the Finger Lakes region.
  By opening the road to timber and logging, the President is sending a 
message that every protected wildness and forest in America is 
vulnerable to attack by profit-hungry interest groups. From Alaska to 
New York, this effort must be blocked.
  Environmental policy has a lasting effect on succeeding generations. 
The risk of causing irreparable damage is high. These policies must be 
developed with the goal of balancing the interests of labor, industry, 
and the environment, not with the goal of increasing timber sales.
  It is amazing that the greatest conservation President in the history 
of our country was a Republican, President Theodore Roosevelt, while we 
are now seeing the greatest anti-environmental President in another 
Republican, George Bush.
  Mr. Speaker, the former poet laureate of Colorado and singer/
songwriter John Denver said, ``To the mountains I confess there; to the 
rivers I will be strong; to the forests, I find peace there; to the 
wild country I belong.''

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