Murray Wants Logging Bill Altered

Unpublished correction: The headline was actually published as follows: Murrway wants logging bill altered.

Poised for a battle with Western Republicans, Sen. Patty Murray said she would introduce a bill today to repeal a controversial logging law and replace it with a new, long-term salvage program.

“It has reopened old wounds in the Pacific Northwest,” Murray, D-Wash., said in calling for the repeal during a news conference at the Capitol.

Murray said her bill would carry out emergency timber harvests when needed to reduce fire threats but would do so within the confines of existing environmental laws.

The current law, written by Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., and others, blocks administrative appeals and suspends most regulations protecting fish and wildlife so as to expedite logging of dead and dying trees in national forests through the end of the year.

It also orders the Forest Service to release thousands of acres of healthy old-growth forests for logging in Oregon and Washington, including habitat for the threatened marbled murrelet which had been sold prior to 1990 but later blocked from harvest due to new data regarding the danger to the bird.

President Clinton has said he made a mistake by signing the measure as part of a comprehensive spending bill last summer and that he wants parts of it repealed.