Forestry: Where Bush's Midnight Regulations Could Backfire

[seafan]

George W. Bush's environmental gang-rape continues.

It is not his last. He still has 15 more days.



Forestry: Where Bush's Midnight Regs Could Backfire

Posted by Josh Harkinson on 01/05/09
at Mother Jones

The Bush Administration is pushing two last-minute decisions that could double logging on more than 2 million acres of federal forestland and make it much easier for timber companies to convert forests into subdivisions. The moves are opposed by environmentalists even as the political upside for Republicans is less clear than it would have been in the '90s, when the GOP gained traction in the West by siding with loggers against the spotted owl.

Bush's move to increase logging, which would affect 2.6 million acres in southwest Oregon, comes at a time when some large private timber farms in that area have collapsed due to over-harvesting. As a result, the battle lines of the old timber wars are being redrawn. For example, before Charles Hurwitz sold his Pacific Lumber company in June, he'd closed three of his four mills and fired 80 percent of his workers. Most locals now blame Hurwitz for the layoffs, and the new owners of the company have won support from both loggers and environmentalists by pursuing a sustainable yield and preserving old growth trees. Increasingly, loggers no longer demand pillaging harvests, while enviros support logging as a preferable alternative to development. Bush's move ignores that trend.

Which brings us to Bush's second midnight reg: allowing the Plum Creek Timber Company to pave roads through forest service land in Montana, which would open up much of the company's 1.2 million acres there to rural subdivisions. The move has incurred the ire of county governments, which worry that it could undo efforts to cluster housing in urban areas and create new burdens to provide services. During the presidential campaign, Obama shrewdly noted the the subdivisions could "cause prime hunting and fishing lands to be carved up and closed off." They'd also take the land out of timber production, reinforcing the common cause between enviros and loggers on urban sprawl.

If Bush really wanted to help out loggers, he would have curbed the housing bubble. The collapse in residential construction has slashed timber prices. But the Republicans, like Hurwitz, were more concerned with raking in the green than sustainably growing it.

(See article for multiple internal links.)

[leftyclimber]

1. I deal with the social science end of this in my work

(how natural resources and people interact/affect each other) and have been, well, less than thrilled about the environmental situation thus far, as well as how it affects people.

And if Bush really wanted to help the timber people, he would have curbed the export of raw logs and allowed only milled lumber to leave the country. But, fuck no, he had to send those jobs overseas as well. Some tree cutting is necessary (think thinning, so that planted seedlings that are currently too dense can grow properly), and we're lying to ourselves if we don't acknowledge that we use wood for houses/paper/rayon fabric/etc. for the time being (I prefer alternatives, but there you are, and there are people on this site that can address the silvicultural aspect far better than I). But IF we have to do it, we have to do it INTELLIGENTLY.

And let's not even talk about what this bullshit "amenity migration" (yes, that's what they call it when greedy rich assholes build houses in forested areas like those you describe :puke: ) and how it devastates the small communities where it occurs. And the rest of us, as our watersheds are trashed, our fish and wildlife are destroyed, unknown species remain unknown because they are gone.... Oh, I could go forever.

:banghead:

[quidam56]

2. Bush is a terrorist in Appalachia

Quit blowing Appalachia to smithereens http://www.wisecountyissues.com We can't stand anymore prosperity.

[seafan]

3. Breaking: Timber company drops road deal with Forest Service

Timber company drops road deal with Forest Service

By SUSAN GALLAGHER
AP

January 5, 2009, 10:21 PM EST

HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- The nation's largest owner of timberland disclosed Monday that it will no longer pursue changes in agreements governing its use of U.S. Forest Service roads - changes that critics complained could transform forests into housing subdivisions.

Critics of the proposed changes had included President-elect Barack Obama and Montana's junior senator.

Changes in the agreements would benefit the public, but "given the lack of receptivity, we have decided not to go forward," Plum Creek Timber Co. Chief Executive Officer Rick Holley wrote in a letter to Missoula County, which opposed altering the agreements.

Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey indicated as recently as last week that the changes negotiated privately by the Forest Service and Plum Creek would become final before he leaves office when the Bush administration ends this month.
Rey, a former lobbyist for the timber industry, said the company's decision is "not good news for the federal government or the public at large." He had maintained the changes secured new benefits for the government rather than for Plum Creek.

<<<:eyes:>>>

.....

Critics argued that the changes sought by Plum Creek would have allowed it to pave Forest Service roads and make it easier for the company to develop vacation homes in Montana's mountain forests. Such housing tracts could saddle local governments with costly services such as fire protection in remote places, they said.

Soon after a Montana campaign appearance, Obama said in July that the planned changes would further jeopardize public access to hunting and fishing areas.

.....

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., had focused his criticism on the private nature of the negotiations between Plum Creek and the Forest Service and instigated a review of the talks by the federal General Accountability Office.
"This is about transparency in government and making sure everyone impacted is at the table so they have their piece heard," he said Monday. "This is, after all, public land." ..... "Our concern was that Rey was going to sign this at the last minute, as a "here's what you get as I go out the door' kind of thing," Curtiss said.

It's time to take out the garbage in Washington, D. C.