Scaled-Back Logging Plan Seeks Thinning House Ag Chief Smith Concedes Bill Reflects Power Of Environmentalists

A new attempt to restore the health of national forests through some reasonable, limited logging? Or another wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing bill that would cut the trees to save them?

Rep. Bob Smith, the Oregon Republican who heads the House Agriculture Committee, introduced a measure last week that proposes to reduce catastrophic wildfire threats by thinning overstocked national forests of dead and dying trees.

But you won’t find the term “salvage logging” anywhere in the legislation. It’s called “The Forest Recovery and Protection Act of 1997.”

The name reflects new sensitivity to the environmental impacts as well as the politics of the matter, Smith says.

“Salvage became a word we probably can’t use anymore. It’s one of those words that creates a lot of animosity,” he said in an interview last week.

That’s partly because environmentalists opposed to the idea won the public-relations war over what they dubbed “logging without laws.”

“Without question,” Smith agreed. “The whole timber debate was totally lost. They won the day and they won the argument.”

The initial salvage-logging measure, a sweeping program that waived environmental laws to accelerate salvage logging, expired last December. Conservation groups persuaded the public that the legislation was a giveaway to the timber industry.

The new proposal calls for a scaled-back approach, focusing on pilot projects on potentially millions of national-forest acres. Smith said his bill drew opposition from some Western Republicans, who contend the whole 40 million-acre backlog of unhealthy national forest stands should be addressed.

“There are those who say this doesn’t go far enough - they want the whole enchilada,” said Smith, a six-term conservative lawmaker who owns a ranch in Eastern Oregon.

“But we tried that in the last Congress and got zero for our effort.”

For starters, all existing laws protecting fish and wildlife would remain in effect under Smith’s proposal. A scientific panel would be appointed to watch over the Forest Service’s rankings of priority projects.

“It helps send a message we are there truly to help the health of the forest, not under a guise to clearcut the forests of the West,” Smith said.

Not everyone is buying that.

“This bill is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said Ken Raitt, conservation director of the Oregon Natural Resources Council in Portland.

“The biggest forest health threat to our national forests isn’t wildfire, it’s industrial clearcutting,” he said.

Smith’s proposal would shift $50 million from a Forest Service firefighting fund to finance the restoration efforts.

Pilot projects would begin as early as next summer across potentially millions of acres of national forests in the Pacific Northwest, the interior Columbia River Basin, the Sierra Nevada and Southern Appalachian mountains, and forests of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York.

“This bill actually takes money away from sound fire management funds and puts it into timber-cutting activities,” Raitt said.

“This is exactly the wrong direction we need to head in if we are going to protect our public forests.”

Smith contends his proposal is the only responsible way to address the growing fire threat in Western forests. The overstocked conditions are the result of past fire-suppression practices as well as removal of the largest, highest-value trees that are replaced by smaller trees.

“Last year we lost almost 1 million acres and we spent $1 billion fighting fires,” he said.

“We’ve just decided we’re going the wrong way. We’re losing forests faster than we can win the debate.”

Industry leaders praised the bill as scientifically sound and environmentally sensitive.

“It is a reasoned, common-sense response to forest-health problems across the nation,” said W. Henson Moore, president of the American Forest & Paper Association.

Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck told Congress earlier this year the agency has identified 40 million acres in the 192 million-acre national forest system that are suffering health problems due to bug infestations, disease and past logging practices.

“But they are only treating 1 million acres a year,” Smith said.

Smith said he hopes the Clinton administration will support the plan. “But there is such a division in philosophies,” he said.

“The Eastern philosophy says that the federal lands belong to everybody and you shouldn’t enter them for timber or grazing or mining. The Westerners see those lands as an integral part of their very livelihood.”