New Rules Issued for National Forests("we're really in a new world")

[RedEarth]

The Bush administration issued comprehensive new rules yesterday for managing the national forests, jettisoning some environmental protections that date to Ronald Reagan's administration and putting in place the biggest change in forest-use policies in nearly three decades.

The regulations affect recreation, endangered-species protections and livestock grazing, among other things, on all 192 million acres of the country's 155 national forests. Sally Collins, associate chief of the U.S. Forest Service, said the changes will replace a bureaucratic planning process with a more corporate management approach that will allow officials to respond to changing ecological and social conditions.

The new rules give economic activity equal priority with preserving the ecological health of the forests in making management decisions and in potentially liberalizing caps on how much timber can be taken from a forest. Forest Service officials estimated the changes will cut its planning costs by 30 percent and will allow managers to finish what amount to zoning requirements for forest users in two to three years, instead of the nine or 10 years they sometimes take now.

The government will no longer require that its managers prepare an environmental impact analysis with each forest's management plan, or use numerical counts to ensure there are "viable populations" of fish and wildlife. The changes will reduce the number of required scientific reports and ask federal officials to focus on a forest's overall health, rather than the fate of individual species, when evaluating how best to protect local plants and animals.

"We're really in a new world," Collins said in an interview. "You've got to have different plans for different places, and you've got to have more dynamic plans."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20752-2004Dec22?language=printer

[AllyCat]

1. And you can bet that "overall health" of the forests

will basically mean "What's in it for me?" style of management. So much for the beautiful gift of nature God has given us and that which we have protected for eons.

Evil, satanic Shrub!

[RedEarth]

3. Corporate Greed...the "new world" this administration is talking about.

[jilln]

2. :mad: :mad:

:mad:

[Webster Green]

4. What a crock!

As if the fate of individual species has no effect whatsoever on the overall health of the forest.

I will fight these bastards till the day I die.

NO compromise in the defense of Mother Earth.

Earth First!

See you in the woods motherfuckers!

[ChristaElaine]

5. info please

Somebody help me out. The article says that the administration issued these new rules. How does the executive branch have this kind of power? Doesn't Congress have anything to say about this? Are the new rules based on authorization from Congress? Forgive my ignorance.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. Technically, they can.

I assume the rules were issued by the Forest Service, which, as a federal administrative agency (like the IRS, for example), has the power to make rules. Federal agencies are part of the executive branch, so would technically be part of the administration. However, most proposed agency rules have to be published in advance in the Federal Register with time given for public comment. There are other procedures that are required as well. The reason these agencies have the power to issue rules is because Congress would have delegated that power when it created the agency. So, assuming the rules were made following the proper prcedures, we are probably stuck with them.

[mchill]

8. Some of the rules are laws

Like NEPA, but mostly Forest Service uses a dumbed down version to find "No significan Impact" for timber sales, fuel reduction, building a campground, etc. and avoiding the bigger Environmental Impact Statement Process. Though, since Clinton's President's Plan, there has been a lot of TES species inventories and biologicial assessments, database development, etc. and there are always a host of other initiatives requiring "planning", such as OHV parks, FERC licensing, raising dams, etc. Every 10 years each forest is required to do an overall Forest Management Plan (EIS); Bush's new policy seems to be attacking this process. This EIS determines the annual timber harvest, protected areas, etc. It is planning intensive and $$$$.

btw, he's been trying to outsource forest service employees for the last 3 years to private contractors. We always seem to outcompete his private friends and win the contracts, but at great cost to morale and productivity in the process. It looked like congress was going to put the cabash on this activity, but he threatned to veto the latest omnibus bill if OMB's ability to outsource govt wasn't put back in.

[MasonJar]

7. How did we come to this point? A crazy and dumb so-called

leader who is giving away our country literally to corporate cronies seems ubiquitous when it comes to destruction. This land is our land; we must stop him. We have no airwaves; we have no peace of mind. For four years already I have known that each and every day Bush would do something that I hate. I have not been wrong yet.

[Moderator]

9. Duplicate

Please continue discussion here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1092069