Clinton Concedes Defeat On Nw Timber-Cutting Issue President Orders Thousands Of Acres Of Trees To Be Released For Harvest

The Clinton administration, conceding it has run out of legal remedies, directed federal land management agencies Thursday to release for harvest thousands of acres of trees in the Pacific Northwest that it had sought to leave uncut to protect wildlife.

The directive followed a decision late Wednesday by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denying the administration a stay of a federal District Court ruling. That ruling, issued last month, upheld the timber industry’s contention that the sale is required under a law approved by Congress and signed by President Clinton last summer.

The administration’s loss in court is a blow to its plan for more careful management of federal forests in the Pacific Northwest. It also validates the warnings of environmentalists dismayed by Clinton’s acquiescence to timber provisions in last summer’s budget legislation.

At stake in the court decision are some 230 million board feet of timber - enough to build 23,000 average-sized homes - which had been kept from sawmills during the early 1990s to protect threatened wildlife, primarily the marbled murrelet, a sea bird that nests in old-growth trees.

“We fought this to the bitter end, and this is the bitter end,” said Peter Coppelman, deputy assistant attorney general. “The damage will be done. We now have to release the sales.”

The administration had disagreed with congressional Republicans and the timber industry over the scope of the budget bill’s language. The legislation released for harvest timber that had been ordered sold by Congress in 1989 to skirt court restrictions to protect the spotted owl, but the sales subsequently were held up to protect other species.

Congressional leaders and the timber industry argued the language covered not just the sales in the 1989 legislation but also all sales in Oregon, Washington and Northern California withheld in subsequent years. Their view has prevailed, and an estimated 62 additional timber sales will go forward now.

Roger McManus, president of the Center for Marine Conservation, said the decision “may be the death blow for the salmon industry in the Pacific Northwest” because the forests involved are adjacent to streams that provide critical habitat for spawning fish.

“President Clinton has to assume the responsibility for what is going to happen to the Pacific Northwest now.”