Industry Wants Timber Sales Released Attorneys Asking Judge To Jail Agriculture Official For Contempt

Timber industry lawyers are asking a judge to throw an assistant U.S. agriculture secretary in jail if he continues to refuse allowing logging in some old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest.

“The Clinton administration is refusing to obey the law,” said Chris West, vice president of the Northwest Forestry Association in Portland.

“Our goal isn’t to put anybody in jail. All we want is for these timber sales to be released.”

The case involves parts of national forests in Oregon and Washington, some of them centuries old, that were sold for harvest but never turned over to the bidding logging companies.

The Forest Service held up the timber sales after environmental concerns were raised with the listing of the northern spotted owl as a threatened species in 1990.

Two weeks ago, a federal judge in Eugene, Ore., ruled much of the logging should go forward under legislation President Clinton signed in July at the urging of Western Republicans and over the objections of conservationists.

That legislation waives laws protecting fish and wildlife so logging can be expedited in Northwest forests with spotted owls, and in forests nationwide where dead and dying trees pose a fire threat.

Clinton signed the legislation, but with a pledge to allow the logging only within the confines of existing laws.

The administration has not formally responded to U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan’s ruling that the timber be released. Environmental lawyers say the ruling gave no deadline for releasing the timber sales.

A Justice Department lawyer, Ellen Athas, told the timber industry in a letter earlier this month the government was taking steps to release the timber for logging.

But last week, the industry’s Northwest Forest Resource Council asked the judge to find Clinton administration officials in contempt and fine them $50,000 a day for a week, with the fines doubling each day after that until the logging begins.

“Judge Hogan issued an order compelling them to award and release the sales two weeks ago. They have done nothing,” West said.

“This administration doesn’t want trees to be cut. Despite all their promises about implementing the president’s plan and getting the cut out, they are doing everything they can to restrict logs from going to mills.”

The group singled out James Lyons, assistant secretary in charge of the Forest Service, and Tom Tuchmann, who oversees Clinton’s Northwest forest policy from the Office of Forestry and Economic Development in Portland.