WASHINGTON, DC (June 30, 2006) -- The Senate Appropriations Committees has included language in the FY 07 Interior Appropriations Bill to exempt some logging projects on the National Forests from the normal citizen comment and appeal requirements. Section 426 of the Senate Interior Appropriations bill provides that projects "categorically excluded" by the Forest Service do not need to be subjected to public notice, comment and appeal. In recent years, the agency has greatly expanded the size of logging projects that can be “categorically excluded.”
“This rider is nothing more than an attempt to cut the public out of decisions affecting public lands,” said Cecilia Clavet, National Forest Program Associate for The Wilderness Society. “The American people have always had the right to comment and appeal on potentially harmful logging projects on public lands -- and they should always have that right since they are the owners of the land.”
The rider would overturn a court ruling which has determined that the Forest Service could not exempt “substantial projects” from public participation requirements. Last fall, the administration attempted to use this federal court ruling to create a political train-wreck by over-applying this ruling to halt thousands of non-applicable projects, even the delivery of the National Christmas Tree to Washington, D.C.
In an Oct. 2005 letter to the President, Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Harkin stated “This action was an unnecessary and inappropriate response to a recent court ruling, and appears to be an attempt to make a political statement, rather than manage our National Forests rationally.” The Washington Post opined in “Forest Service Sulk” (10/25/05) that “…this was a political ploy -- deliberately designed to wreak havoc and feed the opposition to public consultation…”
“The administration's claim that comments and appeals are holding up fuel reduction and other non-controversial projects doesn’t hold water -- just as their claims last fall proved to have no merit,” said Sean Cosgrove, forest policy specialist for the Sierra Club. “Any implementation problems lie with the administration's own inefficiencies and poor priorities, not citizen involvement. The Forest Service already has emergency authority to proceed with urgent projects, and is using the specter of forest emergencies for much wider authority to exempt non-emergency projects from public review.”
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