- Dec 24, 2000
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07...earth/17forest.html?em
In a move to protect endangered species, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Thursday that his department had reversed a Bush administration decision to double the amount of logging allowed in and around old-growth forests in western Oregon.
Veering between swipes at ?indefensible? moves by the Bush administration and pledges to step up noncontroversial timber sales, Mr. Salazar said in a conference call with reporters that he was reinstating a compromise reached 15 years ago to limit logging with the goal of protecting watersheds, trout and salmon fisheries and endangered birds like the spotted owl.
?Today we are taking action to reform Department of Interior and correct mistakes by correcting legal shortcuts the late administration made at the end of its tenure,? Ms. Salazar said.
About time....
The Bush policy, challenged in the courts by environmentalists, would have allowed timber companies to cut up to 502 million board-feet of lumber annually from 2.6 million acres of forests in the region, or about double the amount allowed under the Northwest Forest Plan, the compromise in 1994 reached under President Bill Clinton.
Mr. Salazar?s decision to reverse that policy amid a severe recession is fraught: at 12.1 percent, the unemployment rate in Oregon is among the highest in the country. In Douglas County, where the forestlands involved are situated, the unemployment rate is 16.9 percent, in large part because of closings of sawmills and the loss of timber jobs.
Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource Council, expressed frustration with the reversal. ?Oregon is facing double-digit unemployment,? he said in a statement. Opening up logging under the Bush administration?s plan ?would have given our timber-dependent communities a real boost,? he said.
Sucks to be him I guess. Find another job. Intel is hiring an Oregon based company.
We need to preserve our forests not whack it down for $$$ and greed. Thank god bush is gone and mcsame didn't make it in. It would have been a disaster for the environment.
Kristen Boyles, a lawyer with the environmental group Earthjustice, said on Thursday: ?Whopper was not going to be the ticket for Oregon. It would have been a sea of stumps, and not what we needed to see in working Oregon forests.?
She added, ?This is a big step for the Obama administration take.?
In a move to protect endangered species, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Thursday that his department had reversed a Bush administration decision to double the amount of logging allowed in and around old-growth forests in western Oregon.
Veering between swipes at ?indefensible? moves by the Bush administration and pledges to step up noncontroversial timber sales, Mr. Salazar said in a conference call with reporters that he was reinstating a compromise reached 15 years ago to limit logging with the goal of protecting watersheds, trout and salmon fisheries and endangered birds like the spotted owl.
?Today we are taking action to reform Department of Interior and correct mistakes by correcting legal shortcuts the late administration made at the end of its tenure,? Ms. Salazar said.
About time....
The Bush policy, challenged in the courts by environmentalists, would have allowed timber companies to cut up to 502 million board-feet of lumber annually from 2.6 million acres of forests in the region, or about double the amount allowed under the Northwest Forest Plan, the compromise in 1994 reached under President Bill Clinton.
Mr. Salazar?s decision to reverse that policy amid a severe recession is fraught: at 12.1 percent, the unemployment rate in Oregon is among the highest in the country. In Douglas County, where the forestlands involved are situated, the unemployment rate is 16.9 percent, in large part because of closings of sawmills and the loss of timber jobs.
Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource Council, expressed frustration with the reversal. ?Oregon is facing double-digit unemployment,? he said in a statement. Opening up logging under the Bush administration?s plan ?would have given our timber-dependent communities a real boost,? he said.
Sucks to be him I guess. Find another job. Intel is hiring an Oregon based company.
We need to preserve our forests not whack it down for $$$ and greed. Thank god bush is gone and mcsame didn't make it in. It would have been a disaster for the environment.
Kristen Boyles, a lawyer with the environmental group Earthjustice, said on Thursday: ?Whopper was not going to be the ticket for Oregon. It would have been a sea of stumps, and not what we needed to see in working Oregon forests.?
She added, ?This is a big step for the Obama administration take.?
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