Speakers rally against Bush’s logging plan

WASHINGTON – Democrats, environmentalists and an Olympic silver medalist Tuesday called on the Bush administration to withdraw a plan to allow road building and logging on 58 million acres of remote forests where both are now prohibited.

At a rally in front of the White House, speakers called the plan a giveaway to the timber industry that could devastate some of the most pristine woodlands and rivers in the country.

“When we protect the wild forests, we’re also protecting our wild rivers,” said Rebecca Giddens of Kernville, Calif., who won a silver medal in the kayak slalom in Athens last month.

Giddens, 26, trains in the Kern River in California’s Sequoia National Forest, paddling through thousands of acres of untouched, roadless areas. She called on the administration to protect the Sequoia and other forests.

“Without these wild places, I wouldn’t have a place to play,” she said.

The administration said in July it was reversing a 2001 rule imposed by President Clinton that prohibited road construction on nearly one-third of federal forests. The ban on roads has meant no logging, mining or other development in 58.5 million acres of national forests.

Environmentalists call the so-called “roadless rule” an important protection, but the timber industry and some GOP lawmakers criticize it as overly intrusive and even dangerous, saying it has left millions of acres exposed to catastrophic fire.

The new policy calls for governors to decide by 2006 whether to petition the federal government to block new roads in their forests.

Bill Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society, called the plan nonsensical.

“We don’t ask governors to manage our military bases. We shouldn’t ask them to manage our national forests,” he said.

Forest Service spokeswoman Heidi Valetkevich defended the plan.

“The USDA Forest Service is committed to protecting and maintaining roadless values in national forests, and we believe this proposed rule will do just that,” she said.

More than 100 people attended the rally, which organizers called to coincide with a previously scheduled deadline for public comments. The administration said last week it is delaying the comment period until Nov. 15 – a move critics said was in recognition of the plan’s unpopularity.

“I think this is about ducking for cover,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., a leading proponent of the roadless rule and a speaker at Tuesday’s rally. Reps. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., and Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., also spoke.

Organizers said more than a million people have sent comments to the Forest Service since the rule change was announced in July. An overwhelmingly majority support keeping the rule as it is, they said.