Sen. Craig Says Forest Service Not Staying Focused On Mission

The chairman of a Senate panel overseeing the Forest Service said Tuesday the agency is “spinning its wheels” doing environmental assessments when it should be focusing resources on logging, recreation and other national forest missions.

“They are now spending a phenomenal amount of resources in almost perpetual assessment without being able to be goal-oriented, result oriented in a way that I think any responsible agency ought to be,” Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said in an interview.

“In many instances it is wheel-spinning at the highest level and none of those kinds of public resources, to the tune of millions of dollars, are ever getting to the ground,” he said.

“I’m not talking just logs on a truck,” he said. “Producing a stable timber supply is one part of a whole host of responsibilities from wildlife habitat, water quality management, all of those kinds of things that are critical.”

Craig, chairman of the Senate Agriculture subcommittee on forestry, said his panel would hold the third of 10 planned hearings today on management of federal forests.

He said he hopes the hearings will yield a strategy for legislation to give the Forest Service more control over its management of national forests.

“It may require a major law change, but I can’t make that assessment yet,” Craig said.

Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas was scheduled to testify before Craig’s panel today. A spokesman for the Forest Service did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment on Tuesday.

Agriculture Department spokesman Jim Peterson said Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman has appointed a task force to study conflicts in environmental laws that impede the Forest Service from doing its job.

“Until the results of that are given to the secretary due June 1, any comment would be premature,” Peterson said.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let stand a lower court ruling that said the Forest Service had erred by failing to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service regarding the impact of forest management plans in Oregon on salmon species protected by the Endangered Species Act.

The Forest Service had argued it cannot continually be changing its management plans to include the most up-to-date scientific information on fish and wildlife populations.

Craig said it was an example of the dilemma facing forest managers.

“How does the Forest Service manage itself with some degree of continuity, instead of every time there is a new finding, everything stops?” he asked.

Craig said he’s seen no evidence that forest management plans will be improved by the various watershed and regional environmental assessments currently underway.

“One of the problems with science today is it is misdirected and misused. More importantly, the law is written in a way that allows certain interest groups to use the legal structure to trigger activities or stopping of activities every time there is a new piece of information out there. It becomes a game,” Craig said.