The Bush administration's announcement this week that it plans to open nearly 60 million acres of pristine, roadless National Forests to logging, mining, oil and gas drilling and road building may be one of the largest environmental rollbacks of the modern era. It also dramatizes the urgent need for genuine campaign finance reform.
Industries that opposed protections for roadless areas on National Forests have given nearly $25 million in campaign donations to President Bush and the Republican Party, according to the Heritage Forests Campaign. [1] These same industries have contributed close to $5 million to Democrats. President Bush alone has received nearly $5 million in campaign contributions from industries that oppose environmental preservation.
Shortly after President Bush took office, the selection of Mark Rey as under secretary for Natural Resources and the Environment at the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- which oversees the U.S. Forest Service -- signaled that conservation policies were in jeopardy.
Mr. Rey came to the White House after a long career as a leading timber industry lobbyist, including stints as vice president of Forest Resources for the American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA), the leading national voice for more logging in national forests; executive director of the American Forest Resource Alliance, a coalition of 350 timber corporations formed by the National Forest Products Association; and vice president of Public Forestry Programs for the National Forest Products Association.
While the decision this week to open huge swaths of roadless forests to more clear-cutting and old-growth logging will have dire consequences for clean water, wildlife habitat, fisheries and forest ecology, America's taxpayers will also have to pony up.
Under the Forest Service's antiquated road building policies -- which the Bush ruling put back into play with its rejection of the Clinton-era roadless rule -- taxpayers pay the entire cost of building new roads into forests in order to provide logging trucks and drilling rigs access to the public's resources.
Currently, the USFS has a $10 billion maintenance backlog for the already existing network of roads in National Forests, many of which primarily benefit private industry. [2] The public will pay the tab.
The Bush proposal is open to public comment for the next 60 days. During two public comment periods, one under President Clinton and one under President Bush, nearly 95% of the 2.5 million comments supported the roadless policy. [3]
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TAKE ACTION
Email your comments to the Bush Administration today.
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SOURCES:
[1] Heritage Forest Campaign.
[2] Taxpayers for Commonsense.
[3] Heritage Forest Campaign.
