Bush targets roadless rule to boost logging

WASHINGTON – Governors would have to petition the federal government to block road-building in remote areas of national forests under a Bush administration proposal to boost logging.

Environmentalists say the proposed rule change, outlined this week in the Federal Register, would signal the end of the so-called roadless rule, which blocks road construction in nearly one-third of national forests as a way to prevent logging and other commercial activity in the backcountry.

Without a national policy against road construction, forest management would revert to individual forest plans that in many cases allow roads and other development on most of the 58 million acres now protected by the roadless rule, environmentalists say.

Environmentalists said it is unlikely that governors in pro-logging states would seek to keep the roadless rule in effect.

“I can’t imagine the governors of Montana or Wyoming or Colorado moving ahead with this thing and saying we want to petition to get in” to protect roadless areas, said Michael Francis, national forest director for The Wilderness Society.

Forest Service spokeswoman Heidi Valetkevitch stressed that the proposal was preliminary, but called it an accurate statement of the administration’s intentions.

Officials had said last year they would develop a plan to allow governors to seek exemptions from the roadless rule. The latest plan turns that on its head by making governors petition the Agriculture Department if they want to maintain logging restrictions.

“The roadless rule is struck down nationwide,” Valetkevitch said, referring to a 2003 ruling by a federal judge in Wyoming. “We are trying to create a rule that will pass legal muster.”

Mark Rey, the Agriculture undersecretary who directs U.S. forest policy, said the Federal Register notice was just one of many options the administration is considering.

“What you have here is a summation of one option that has not been decided on. There’s no reason for anybody to get agitated about it,” Rey said. “When we finally close in on an option people will have plenty to say whether they like it or not.”

Asked why other options were not published, he said they were “fairly complicated.”

Rey said the previous plan to maintain the existing rule while allowing governors to opt out “is not something we can do,” because of the Wyoming ruling.

Adopted by the Clinton administration during its lfinal days in office, the roadless rule has twice been struck down by federal judges, most recently in a Wyoming case decided in July 2003. That case, which environmentalists have appealed, is one of several pending legal challenges, complicating efforts to issue a new plan.

The Federal Register notice calls for public comment to begin later this, although Rey called that timetable uncertain at best.

“It’s far from a done deal,” he said.