    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
    [July 1, 1993]
    [Pages 964-966]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks Announcing the Forest Conservation Plan
    July 1, 1993

        Ladies and gentlemen, this issue has been one which has bedeviled
    the people of the Pacific Northwest for some years now. It has been one
    that has particularly moved me for two reasons: first of all, because so
    many people in that part of the country brought their concerns to me in
    the campaign on all sides of this issue, the timber workers and
    companies, the environmentalists, the Native Americans, the people who
    live in those areas who just wanted to see the controversy resolved, so
    they could get on with their lives; and secondly, because I grew up in a
    place with a large timber industry and a vast amount of natural
    wilderness, including a large number of national forests. So I have a
    very close identity with all the forces at play in this great drama that
    has paralyzed the Pacific Northwest for too long.
        We're announcing a plan today which we believe will strengthen the
    long-term economic

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    and environmental health of the Pacific Northwest and northern
    California. The plan provides an innovative approach to forest
    management to protect the environment and to produce a predictable and
    sustainable level of timber sales. It offers a comprehensive, long-term
    plan for economic development. And it makes sure that Federal Agencies,
    for a change, will be working together for the good of all the people of
    the region.
        The plan is a departure from the failed policies of the past, when
    as many as six different Federal Agencies took different positions on
    various interpretations of Federal law and helped to create a situation
    in which, at length, no timber cutting at all could occur because of
    litigation, and still environmentalists believed that the long-term
    concerns of the environment were not being addressed.
        The plan is more difficult than I had thought it would be in terms
    of the size of the timber cuts, in part because during this process the
    amount of timber actually in the forests and available for cutting was
    revised downward sharply, in no small measure because of years of
    overcutting, and in a way that provides an annual yield smaller than
    timber interests had wanted, and a plan without some of the protections
    that environmentalists had sought. I can only say that as with every
    other situation in life, we have to play the hand we were dealt. Had
    this crisis been dealt with years ago, we might have a plan with a
    higher yield and with more environmentally protected areas. We are doing
    the best we can with the facts as they now exist in the Pacific
    Northwest.
        I believe the plan is fair and balanced. I believe it will protect
    jobs and offer new job opportunities where they must be found. It will
    preserve the woodlands, the rivers, the streams that make the Northwest
    an attractive place to live and to visit. We believe in this case it is
    clear that the Pacific Northwest requires both a healthy economy and a
    healthy environment and that one cannot exist without the other.
        I want to say a special word of thanks to the Vice President, to the
    Interior Secretary, Bruce Babbitt, to Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy,
    to Labor Secretary Reich, Commerce Secretary Brown, Environmental
    Protection Administrator Browner, Environmental Policy Director Katie
    McGinty, and many others in our administration who worked together to
    bring all the forces of the Federal Government into agreement, not
    because they all agreed on every issue at every moment but because they
    knew that we owed the people of the Pacific Northwest at least a unified
    Federal position that would break the logjam of the past several years.
        This shows that people can work together and make tough choices if
    they have the will and courage to do so. Too often in the past the
    issues which this plan addressed have simply wound up in court while the
    economy, the environment, and the people suffered. These issues are
    clearly difficult and divisive; you will see that in the response to the
    position that our administration has taken. If they were easy they would
    have been answered long ago. The main virtue of our plan, besides being
    fair and balanced, is that we attempt to answer the questions and let
    people get on with their lives. We could not, we could not permit more
    years of the status quo to continue, where everything was paralyzed in
    the courts.
        We reached out to hundreds of people, from lumber workers and
    fishermen to environmentalists, scientists, business people, community
    leaders, and Native American tribes. We've worked hard to balance all
    their interests and to understand their concerns. We know that our
    solutions will not make everybody happy. Indeed, they may not make
    anybody happy. But we do understand that we're all going to be better
    off if we act on the plan and end the deadlock and divisiveness.
        We started bringing people together at the Forest Conference in
    April. In the words of Archbishop Thomas Murphy then, we began to find
    common ground for the common good. As people reasoned together in a
    conference room instead of confronting each other in a courtroom, they
    found at least that they shared common values: work and family, faith
    and a reverence for the majestic beauty of the natural environment God
    has bequeathed to that gifted part of our Nation.
        This plan meets the standards that I set as the conference
    concluded. It meets the need for year-round, high-wage, high-skilled
    jobs and a sustained, predictable level of economic activity in the
    forests. It protects the long-term health of the forests, our wildlife,
    and our waterways. It is clearly scientifically sound, ecologically
    credible, and legally defensible.
        By preserving the forests and setting predictable and sustainable
    levels of timber sales, it protects jobs not just in the short term but

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    for years to come. We offer new assistance to workers and to families
    for job training and retraining where that will inevitably be needed as
    a result of the sustainable yield level set in the plan, new assistance
    to businesses and industries to expand and create new family-wage jobs
    for local workers, new assistance to communities to build the
    infrastructure to support new and diverse sources of economic growth,
    and new initiatives to create jobs by investing in research and
    restoration in the forests themselves. And we end the subsidies for log
    exports that end up exporting American jobs.
        This plan offers an innovative approach to conservation, protecting
    key watersheds and the most valuable of our old-growth forests. It
    protects key rivers and streams while saving the most important groves
    of ancient trees and providing habitat for salmon and other endangered
    species. And it establishes new adapted management areas to develop new
    ways to achieve economic and ecological goals and to help communities to
    shape their own future.
        Today I am signing a bill sponsored by Senator Patty Murray and
    Congresswoman Jolene Unsoeld of Washington and supported by the entire
    Northwest congressional delegation to restore the ban of export of raw
    logs from State-owned lands and other publicly owned lands. This act
    alone will save thousands of jobs in the Northwest, including over 6,000
    in Washington State alone.
        Today Secretary Babbitt and Secretary Espy are going to the
    Northwest to talk to State and local officials about how to implement
    the plan and give to workers, companies, and communities the help they
    need and deserve. And soon we will deliver an environmental impact
    statement based on the plan to the Federal District Court in Washington
    State. We will do all we can to resolve the legal actions that have
    halted timber sales, and we will continue to work with all those who
    share our commitment to achieve these goals and move the sales forward.
        Together we can build a better future for the families of the
    Northwest, for their children, and for their children's children. We can
    preserve the jobs in the forest, and we can preserve the forest. The
    time has come to act to end the logjam, to end the endless delay and
    bickering, and to restore some genuine security and rootedness to the
    lives of the people who have for too long been torn from pillar to post
    in this important area of the United States. I believe this plan will do
    that, and this administration is committed to implementing it.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:34 a.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive
    Office Building. H.R. 2343, approved July 1, was assigned Public Law No.
    103-45.