http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1129628223325451.xml&coll=2Tuesday, October 18, 2005
-- Environmental groups accused a state senator Monday of sponsoring a "chain-saw massacre" on state forest land by pushing legislation that would allow an independent board to sell oil, gas and timber leases on state property.
Senate Bill 193, introduced this month by Sen. Jeff Armbruster, a North Ridgeville Republican, would create an Oil, Gas and Timber Leasing Board that would have exclusive authority to lease oil- and gas-drilling -- as well as logging -- rights to private companies.
Armbruster said the law would "protect the environment as best as we can, but also use our natural resources to help offset and add to the
reserves of the United States and the great state of Ohio."
Jack Shaner, a spokesman for the Ohio Environmental Council, said Armbruster's claim that the bill will help make Ohio more energy self-sufficient was "a disingenuous way to sell this to the public to take the radical step of opening up our parks, nature preserves and other state lands to commercial logging."...