Chenoweth Forest Panel Without Rancor

The issue was a bill emphasizing local control over logging in national forests.

The setting was the first hearing of Helen Chenoweth’s new forest health subcommittee.

The discussion was surprisingly agreeable.

“It is possible for people of very diverse interests to agree on objectives for the management of national forests,” Rep. Chenoweth, R-Idaho, said Wednesday.

The group that devised the new legislation should be “commended for developing solutions for us to consider today, instead of asking Congress to referee over continued conflicts,” she said.

Chenoweth, a supporter of increased logging on federal lands, heads the new House Resources subcommittee on forest and forest health.

She sets the subcommittee’s agenda, choosing speakers and the legislation it will consider regarding the nation’s timber supply.

Environmentalists greeted her appointment with fear.

“I think we can expect an all-out attack on our forests this year,” Melanie Griffin of the Sierra Club said earlier this week.

But Wednesday’s hearing was without that kind of rancor.

The bill in question is a priority of Western Republicans.

It would establish a pilot program for three fire-prone northern California forests over five years, using a local plan as a blueprint to thin overly dense stands and remove dead and dying timber.

The measure, introduced by Reps. Wally Herger, R-Calif., and Bob Smith, R-Ore., is modeled after a management scheme developed by concerned citizens in Quincy, Calif., calling for logging to reduce the fire threat.

Herger said the “landmark legislation” would set a precedent for cooperation at the local and national levels.

“We now have a local consensus group bringing local solutions to Washington instead of Washington forcing solutions on local communities,” Herger said.

Chenoweth said she supports the bill as the “culmination of work of the people who have the most at stake in the forests” - “the people who live and work there.”

She also said she hopes the legislation would help encourage similar cooperative efforts in communities across the country, including Idaho.

The Clinton administration and several House Democrats, however, raised some concerns in the hearing.

Jim Lyons, agriculture undersecretary who oversees the Forest Service, said administration officials worry that the bill “could be read as exempting pilot project activities from the requirements of various environmental laws.”

He said authors of the bill were beginning to address the concerns and that the administration remained committed to the “goals of the legislation.

“However, more time is needed to fully consider all of the issues raised by the bill before the administration can fully endorse it,” Lyons told the subcommittee Wednesday.

Herger said he’d heard that before.

“It’s always, ‘Tomorrow we’re going to be with you, we’re almost there,”’ he said.

“I’m concerned there is a pattern here. I just hope the administration is more serious than what we’ve heard the last five months,” Herger said.

Rep. Vic Fazio, D-Calif., is a co-sponsor of the bill, but he said Wednesday he too wants to see compliance with existing environmental laws.

Reps. Bruce Vento, D-Minn., and Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., top Democrat on the subcommittee, said they encourage local involvement, but to a limit.

“These are after all, national forests and all Americans have a stake in them,” Hinchey said.

, DataTimes