Laramie - Today, at 4:45 PM Eastern, the U.S. House passed the "Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003." This misguided piece of wildfire legislation does virtually nothing to help protect forest homeowners from wildfire. Instead, the bill severely limits citizen participation, undermines key environmental laws and authorizes an additional $125 million in taxpayer subsidies to log tens of millions of acres of federal public lands.

"The bill is an unfortunate sham, in that it won't protect lives and property from fire. It gives the public a false sense of security while really just providing more subsidized timber to the logging industry, harming the forests Americans care so much about, and rolling back important environmental protections and judicial oversight" said Jeff Kessler of Laramie's Biodiversity Conservation Alliance.

The very premise of the "Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003" - and the Bush administration's "Healthy Forest Initiative" - were seriously undermined by last week's General Accounting Office report which found that 95% of the 762 Forest Service fuels reduction projects it reviewed were ready for implementation within the standard 90 day review period.

"Today's vote clearly shows that some members of Congress and the Bush administration are willing to sacrifice common sense home protection measures and limit citizen participation in order to promote their agenda of increasing logging on millions of acres of our National Forests," stated Matthew Koehler with the Native Forest Network. "It's frustrating that the GAO finds that 95% of Forest Service fuel reduction projects were ready for implementation within a timely manner and that Forest Service researchers repeatedly state that protecting a home from fire depends entirely on treatment of the home itself and the area within 200 feet of the home, and yet these facts don't matter to those who are intent on limiting citizen participation and increasing logging."

Mike Petersen, executive director of The Lands Council, a Spokane, Washington conservation group that has helped hundreds of rural homeowners craft individual home protection plans, said, "This bill does nothing to protect rural homeowners from wildfire. Instead, it plays on the public's fear of fire to limit citizen participation and undermine our nation's environmental laws in order to increase logging on America's National Forests. It's that simple."

"The House today took a giant step backwards by passing the McInnis bill and defeating the Miller-DeFazio amendment," said Randi Spivak, Executive Director of American Lands. "The McInnis bill ignores the best science on how to protect communities at risk and serves up the same mismanagement schemes that failed in the past. If this bill is not changed by the Senate, the timber industry will continue to line their pockets at the expense of forest communities and taxpayers. "

Andrew George, campaign coordinator with the National Forest Protection Alliance - a national network of over 130 grassroots conservation groups - explained "This bill and the Bush administration’s so-called 'Healthy Forest Initiative' endangers rural homeowners, endangers the health of our National Forests and endangers the right of every American citizen to participate in the management of our public lands. Our grassroots alliance will do everything in our power to make sure that the Senate doesn't pass a similarly flawed bill."

Biodiversity Conservation Alliance supports creating defensible space, not the creation of huge fire breaks or thinning more than a few hundred yards from the wildlands/urban interface.

What matters the most is creation of defensible space directly adjacent to, and on, the places you are trying protect. In most cases this is only a few hundred feet out from the house, barn, etc.

It means:

• having fire-resistant roofs
• removal of fuels such as wood piles and bark mulch from direct contact with the house
• thinning a few hundred feet out from individual homes, or a few hundred yards out from communities, so that if a hot fire comes through it reduces the fire intensity enough to prevent ignition of the houses by radiant heat. You don't have to clear cut, just thin some to reduce the fire intensity DIRECTLY ADJACENT TO THE HOUSE.

HR 1904 does not concentrate scarce federal dollars in these areas that matter the most.

For example, remember that most of the houses that burned in the Los Alomos fires of a few years ago were burned by ground fires, not crown fires. This demontrates the importance of creating defensible space. Also, USFS research shows that most houses can survive even an intense wildlife if they have fire-safed their house. By contrast, it is IMPOSSIBLE to stop all fires in the forests. And even if we could, it would be very damaging to the forests because they depend on fire to rejuvenate, and for a lot of other reasons.

H.R. 1904 Will Not Protect Lives and Property from Fires

H.R. 1904 does nothing to ensure protection of homes and communitiesfrom the risk of wildfire.

Instead, H.R. 1904 will cut the heart out of NEPA, interfere with our independent judiciary, further subsidize logging, and cut out the public.

H.R. 1904 does not offer more protection to communities at risk from wildfire, but rather seeks to undermine our environmental laws and the judicial process when it comes to logging on our public lands, potentially including national parks and wildlife refuges. H.R. 1904 seeks to cut the heart out of the National Environmental Policy Act -- the Magna Carta of environmental protection. It also seeks to eliminate the public’s say regarding the management of our public lands, dramatically interfere with our independent judiciary, and provide new subsidies to the timber industry.

H.R. 1904:

DOES NOT ENSURE ANY INCREASED PROTECTION FOR COMMUNITIES: This bill does not include any specific measures to protect homes or communities. It is also inconsistent with the Western Governors’ Association 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy, which does not call for any changes in existing laws. The only proven method to protect homes and communities is to reduce flammable materials in the immediate vicinity of structures, yet the sham definitions in H.R. 1904 would not require any activities to be near homes. Instead, the bill seeks to further subsidize the timber industry and eliminate obstacles to logging large, fire-resistant trees miles away from the nearest home. The country’s top forest scientists, including the Forest Service’s own scientists, have found that this kind of logging can actually increase fire risk and make fires larger and more intense. Attached is a letter from scientists providing more details.

CUTS THE HEART OUT OF NEPA: H.R. 1904 seeks to eliminate the most important part of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) – the requirement that alternatives to agency actions are considered. The courts have called this consideration of alternatives the very “Heart of NEPA.”

INTERFERES WITH OUR INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY: H.R. 1904 seeks to restrict a core principle of our democracy -- the right of Americans to seek redress in the courts for grievances involving the federal government. It attempts to automatically require a court to tip the scales of justice in favor of logging proponents by attempting to require courts to give deference to an agency on the question of relief. For permanent injunctions, this is an attempt to force courts to defer to agencies to allow projects to go forward even after the court has ruled that the agency actions are illegal. In addition, H.R. 1904 would drastically limit the amount of time the public has to file an appeal in court and attempts to legislate unprecedented interference with the judiciary by limiting the time judges have to review the impacts of logging projects, as well as forcing them to affirmatively renew preliminary injunctions after 45 days. The requirement that several committees of Congress be informed whenever a judge presumes to renew a preliminary injunction is also troubling.

PROVIDES EVEN MORE SUBSIDIES FOR THE TIMBER INDUSTRY: In FY 2002, the Forest Service spent $362 million to subsidize commercial timber. H.R. 1904 would authorize another $125 million in subsidies to log our national forests, but there is no requirement that this money be used to reduce hazardous fuels in the immediate vicinity of communities.

CUTS THE PUBLIC OUT OF THE PROCESS: H.R. 1904 seeks to eliminate the current environmental review process – involving environmental analysis, an opportunity for the public to review and comment on agency decisions, and the ability of the public to appeal agency decisions. The bill attempts to repeal the Appeals Reform Act on 20 million acres, and creates a new category of projects to be excluded from NEPA review on an additional 250,000 acres.

ALLOWS ROADS IN ROADLESS AREAS: H.R. 1904 would override the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and allow temporary roads in roadless areas. Temporary roads can be as damaging to the environment as permanent roads, and are rarely decommissioned as originally intended.

LIMITS PROTECTIONS FOR FISH AND WILDLIFE: H.R. 1904 seeks to limit protections for fish and wildlife, including threatened and endangered species, by eliminating NEPA processes that are essential for avoiding harmful activities that may push a species onto the endangered or threatened list. H.R. 1904 also creates a new program to provide $75 million in subsidies in a vague and undefined reserve program with no standards or guidelines that may seek to allow private landowners to skirt the Endangered Species Act with no accountability and no sure benefit to species or ecosystems.