Other Plans Considered

The Clinton administration may have to look to more stringent protection of fish and wildlife on federal lands in the Pacific Northwest if the Supreme Court rules the government can’t restrict logging on private lands, a top official said Monday.

President Clinton’s Northwest forest protection plan, known as “Option 9,” relies primarily on logging restrictions on national forests and other public lands to save the northern spotted owl from extinction.

But Assistant Interior Secretary George Frampton Jr. said the plan is based on the assumption that the owl will be afforded at least some protection on private lands.

Frampton said an unfavorable ruling in the case before the court Monday, Sweet Home vs. Interior Secretary Babbitt, would undermine efforts to protect the owl on private lands.

The Clinton administration currently is working with private timber companies to secure “habitat conservation plans” that will protect owl habitat on private lands, Frampton said.

But he said many of those agreements have been possible only because the government interprets the Endangered Species Act to allow for prosecution of private land owners who violate species protection measures.

“If the court sustains Sweet Home, I think many private landowners will still negotiate with us, but some may not,” Frampton said.

“That may have an impact on the president’s plan,” he said.

“It is conceivable if we are not able to work out the HCPs (habitat conservation plans) and if this case is affirmed we’d have to go back and look at the overall plan,” he said.

U.S. District Judge William Dwyer of Seattle upheld Clinton’s forest plan last year, but noted in his opinion that if circumstances changed, the plan might be found in violation of federal environmental laws.

He made a specific reference to the potential of the Sweet Home case to change the status of the protection measures for the owl.