Governator Pushes To Roll Back Clinton's Roadless Plan In CA Forests

[hatrack]

"The Schwarzenegger administration signaled its support Tuesday for a plan to drop Clinton-era protections that barred road-building and other development on nearly a third of the country's national forest land, including more than 4 million acres in California. The rollback, proposed by the Bush administration last summer, would repeal the most ambitious conservation move of Clinton's presidency — a rule that blocked commercial timber cutting and road construction on 58.5 million acres of national forest holdings.

In its place, the Bush proposal would create a system that relies heavily on individual states to decide whether the forest lands should be opened to development or remain roadless.

In a letter to the Bush administration that was released Tuesday, state Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman said California welcomed the chance for greater state involvement in federal forest management. Nonetheless, he said, the state did not plan to identify areas for protection or development. Instead, he said, California preferred to work with the U.S. Forest Service as it updates management plans for roadless areas.

Forest Service officials say most of the state's roadless acreage is of little commercial value and the agency has no immediate plans to build roads on it, including a remote area of the Los Padres National Forest in Southern California that has potential for gas and oil development. Still, of the 4.1 million roadless acres in California, slightly more than half would be open to road-building under forest plans that predate the Clinton policy, according to Matt Mathes, regional Forest Service spokesman."

EDIT

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/state/la-me-roadless17nov17,1,2983895.story?coll=la-news-state

[Surikat]

1. Los Padres? Don't make me laugh...

Mind, I like roadless wilderness areas. The problem with the Los Padres in that regard is that it is full of meth labs manned by people who insist on sampling their own product by way of quality assurance. It's bloody dangerous to try wilderness hiking out there. I ran into the same thing when I tried hiking in the Talladega National Forest in Alabama. There it was pot growers who protected their patches with tripwired shotgun man-traps.

[Kolesar]

2. Recall the m&&her-f&&ker ... eom