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Laramie, WY--Environmental groups harshly criticized efforts by the Bush administration and some lawmakers to weaken environmental safeguards and eliminate public involvement in conjunction with forest fuels reduction. A bill authored by Scott McInnis (R-Colo.) and cosponsored by Wyoming’s Representative Barbara Cubin seeks to speed up logging in the name of fuels reduction on Federal lands across the United States. The bill was proposed in support of President Bush’s plan to eliminate public scrutiny from the logging off of federal forestlands to prevent wildfires. A rider containing similar language, authored by Sen. Larry Craig (R) of Idaho, has been attached to an Interior Appropriations bill scheduled for a vote in the Senate Thursday.

Western environmental groups blasted the legislation, noting its similarities to the salvage logging rider of the last decade in eliminating environmental safeguards that provide for scientific review and citizen involvement. The new legislation would gut the appeals process for every federal forest project, not just fuels reduction efforts, removing the system of checks and balances that protects National Forests from industrial abuse.

“The aim of this legislation is to cut local citizens out of the process,” said Erik Molvar of Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. “It’s a Trojan horse to give the logging industry the green light to log anywhere it wants in the name of fuels reduction, without accountability.”

The legislation would allow the Forest Service and other federal agencies to exempt from review any project that could be justified under “relief from imminent hazards” – exempting logging activities from public scrutiny, even in Congressionally designated wilderness, old growth forests, national parks and wildlife refuges.

Harlin Savage, spokesperson for the American Lands Alliance's Colorado field office, states that the overall effect would be to cripple the appeals process: “Unscrupulous lawmakers are clearly using the hysteria surrounding this year’s tragic fire season as a vehicle to undermine the public’s ability to hold the Forest Service accountable for its actions.”

The bills would also severely curtail the amount of environmental analysis that the Forest Service and other federal agencies would perform. The bill requires that environmental analysis “shall be limited to an abbreviated statement,” with no provision for analyzing alternatives to proposed actions. The legislation would also eliminate legal requirements to consider mitigation measures to reduce the impact of agency actions.

“In the 1990s, the Forest Service used the salvage rider to log old growth forests and endangered species habitat that had previously been protected," said Molvar. "Now the Bush Administration wants a blank check to put the federal government above the law once again."

The legislation is particularly threatening to the West’s last remaining roadless areas. “McInnis' bill paves the way for rampant clearcutting in the West's last, remaining roadless forests,” said Savage. “The bill would expedite clearcutting and the bulldozing of roads into America's most pristine forests by eliminating meaningful input from scientists and local citizens and making it next to impossible for them to challenge old growth logging, for example, which will not help make homes safe from fire.”

Most tragically, the legislation fails to concentrate fuels reduction projects where they are most needed: in the ever-expanding wildland-urban interface. “This legislation creates a logging boondoggle in the backcountry that destroys our forests without reducing the threats to life and property one iota,” said Molvar. “If Congress really wants to reduce the fire risk, it should mandate that fuels reduction take place within a quarter mile of homes and structures, where it could do some good.”

Suzanne Jones of the Wilderness Society notes both the McInnis Bill and the President’s initiative largely ignore last year’s Western Governors’ 10-year Comprehensive Wildfire Strategy, a solid, science-based, detailed strategy for addressing wildfire. The strategy was developed by a broad coalition of stakeholders including governors, agency representatives, state and local officials, timber industry, cattlemen and conservation and community leaders. “The Comprehensive Strategy does NOT alter existing environmental laws and yet provides the framework to accomplish aggressive fuel reduction goals protecting both lives and property. The situation does not lack solutions, only the political resolve to implement those solutions.”

Referring to an earlier rider authored by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Molvar stated that “This type of legislation was a bad idea in the Black Hills, and it’s a bad idea throughout the West as well.”