http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,...360998,00.html

Article Published: Thursday, May 01, 2003 - 12:00:00 AM MST


Forest plan eases rules to quash bugs
McInnis: Action needed if infestation looms
By Mike Soraghan, Denver Post Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON The Republican plan for relaxing environmental laws in
national forests has moved beyond simply taming wildfires: Now the GOP
wants to stamp out bugs, too.

Rep. Scott McInnis' plan would free tree-cutting projects of up to
1,000 acres from most environmental review if the land is at "imminent
risk" of insect infestation.

McInnis, of Grand Junction and the House GOP's leader on forestry
issues, says the exemption is needed to study ways to fight
infestations like the bark beetle problem in the Routt National Forest
near Steamboat Springs.

"The exploding threat of large- scale catastrophic wildfires and
massive insect and disease epidemics combine to pose the single
largest challenge facing federal land and resources managers today,"
McInnis said.

But Democrats and environmentalists say the plan clears a path for
"potential clear cuts."

"You can punch as many thousand-acre clear cuts as you want without
any review," charged Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., the Democratic leader
on forest issues.

The bill is the outgrowth of President Bush's "Healthy Forests"
initiative, drafted as the West was still smoldering from last year's
devastating forest-fire season.

The focus on bugs is a new tack for supporters of the Bush forest
plan, which calls for reducing regulatory oversight in order to speed
tree-cutting on public land. Previously, the idea has been to cull the
small trees and underbrush that intensify wildfires.

Supporters say 21 million acres across the West are at risk of bark
beetle infestation, and they think trees should be removed before they
become infested, losing their value as lumber.

Environmental groups say that such tree removals don't reduce fire
risk and that cutting trees after a fire can churn up fragile soil,
making the area more susceptible to erosion.

The emerging plan tracks with the debate over infestation at Routt.
Three environmental groups challenged the Forest Service's plan to log
the more than 250,000 acres there to stop the outbreak.

Republicans fast-tracked the Healthy Forests bill out of committee
Wednesday, sending it to the floor on a 32-17 vote. Four Democrats
voted for the bill.

Republicans beat back attempts by Democrats to restrict environmental
exemptions to logging and thinning within a half-mile of communities.
The Democratic plan also excluded the bug exemptions.

The Bush administration and logging-industry unions hailed the
committee passage.

The fight now moves to the floor, where Republicans have to worry
about the opposition of northeastern Republicans, who are more
responsive than their western counterparts to the environmental lobby.
But Republicans have countered by rounding up the support of more than
a dozen conservative Democrats.

Last year, McInnis was working with leading Democratic
environmentalists like Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., to fashion a
bipartisan bill. But that is less important now that the Senate is in
Republican hands. But Miller predicted that Senate Democrats would be
able to demand changes before the bill can pass.

The McInnis bill "will not become law nor will it solve the wildfire
problems that exist in Western communities," Miller said.