Kempthorne backs roadless plan
BOISE – Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne repeated his support for the Bush administration’s plan to open 58 million acres of national forest land to logging and other development unless governors petition to protect the land.
“Recognizing the important role states have in determining the future of roadless areas within our national forests is a tremendous step,” Kempthorne wrote Monday in comments submitted to the Agriculture Department.
“Strong state and federal cooperation regarding management of inventoried roadless areas will facilitate long-term, community-oriented solutions and ensure a balance between responsible use and conservation of inventoried roadless areas,” the governor said.
The Bush plan would replace the one adopted by the Clinton administration and still under challenge in federal court.
It covers about 58 million of the 191 million acres of national forest nationwide.
About 9 million roadless acres are in Idaho.
Kempthorne said the state, in anticipation of the new rule’s approval, will immediately begin soliciting comments from residents that will be used in developing its position on future development in those roadless areas.
Idaho state officials were among the first to challenge the original Clinton roadless rule, and President Bush’s agriculture secretary, Ann Veneman, came to Boise to announce her administration’s alternative last summer.
In September, in the heat of the election campaign, the administration said it would make no decision on the plan until after the election, and extended the deadline for public comments from Sept. 14 to last Monday.
Environmentalists said that the administration appeared to be rethinking the plan – at least temporarily – in the face of widespread opposition.
Under the new policy, governors would have to decide by 2006 whether to petition the federal government to permit new roads in their forests or keep them untouched.
Environmentalists maintained that most, if not all, governors would have little choice but to propose development in current roadless areas as a means of injecting some life into struggling rural economies.
More than 2.5 million people commented on the original Clinton plan, with about 95 percent favoring forest protection.