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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (150164)	8/22/2002 9:32:54 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1583869

The liberals' perspective on this subject is difficult for me to understand. It is well-established that controlled management of forests is a POSITIVE thing for the environment, NOT a NEGATIVE thing. Are the opposing this measure solely on political grounds? foxnews.com CRAWFORD, Texas — President Bush plans to announce a major policy shift toward logging in national forests Thursday, one that he contends will reduce the risks of wildfires but which also has some environmental groups howling. Bush's plan -- to be unveiled at an southwestern Oregon fairground near the still-smoldering Squires fire -- will make it easier for timber companies to get approval to cut wood in fire-prone national forests. Several Western governors, and even some environmental groups, have been urging such changes, which they say are necessary to clear forests of decades-long buildups of highly flammable underbrush and dead trees. "For the good of our economy, we need common-sense forest policy," Bush said during a stop at Mount Rushmore last week. "We can and we must manage our forests. We must keep them disease-free. We must have reasonable forest policies so as to prevent fires, not encourage them." This year's wildfires across the West have renewed the perennial debate between conservationists who oppose cutting in federal forests and logging interests who argue that underbrush and deadwood increase the risk of fire. Wildfires have burned nearly 6 million acres this summer from Alaska to New Mexico -- twice as much as in an average summer. Federal spending to combat wildfires could reach $1.5 billion this year. Bush's plan would streamline the government's process for reviewing the environmental effects of proposed logging projects; change the standards by which those proposals are approved; and allow government agencies to negotiate contracts giving timber companies and other entities the right to sell the wood products they harvest in exchange for removing them from the forest. Another key aspect of the proposal would make it harder for environmental groups and others to appeal logging plans. The administration said some of the proposed changes could be made within the executive branch, while others would require congressional approval. Several Western lawmakers already are drawing up legislation to speed cutting of overgrown forests. "Needless red tape and lawsuits delay effective implementation of forest health projects," said a White House fact sheet on the initiative. "This year's crisis compels more timely decisions, greater efficiency, and better results to reduce catastrophic wildfire threats to communities and the environment." A senior administration official allowed that large, commercially desirable trees with high fire risks -- either in dense stands or already dead -- could be felled as part of what the official called Bush's "more active management" of forest growth. But environmentalists said the plan could gut safeguards that have protected forests for decades and allow timber companies to not only thin forests of brush, but cut trees -- including some more than a century old. Current Federal policy mandates that forest fires be put out immediately, a practice dating back to the largest wildfire in American history. "The Big Blowup" of August 1910, which spread across three million acres in Idaho, Montana and Washington, killed 85 people and darkened skies all the way to upstate New York. After that widely-reported disaster, the government required that all wildfires be extinguished by 10 a.m. the day after being reported, and provided Federal money to do so. But that policy upset the natural forest fire cycle, in which lightning-struck blazes would thin out underbrush and dead trees without affecting large trees. Since then, uncontrolled wildfires, while far less common, have much more fuel and so burn hotter and faster. Pine forests that naturally have 30 trees per acre now have as many as 300, allowing flames to leap from the top of one tree to another, cross roads and trap firefighters on the ground. While the government, logging interests and conservationists all agree that current policy has to change, the direction to take is still controversial. Some environmental groups favor "controlled burns" meant to thin out underbrush. The Clinton administration experimented with this approach until one managed blaze near Los Alamos, N.M., ran wild and destroyed more than 200 houses in May 2000. Timber companies argue that they can do a better job of thinning out forests, provided they are allowed to make money by taking out some valuable trees. While some conservationists and scientists agree that approach is worth a try, many environmental groups, hardened by decades of fighting loggers, fear that the companies simply want to make a quick and easy buck at the public expense. "We're very concerned they will use the fires to further an agenda they've had for a long time -- and that is to change key environmental laws" that serve to protect the forests from logging, said Linda Lance, a Wilderness Society vice president.