The Bush administration yesterday abandoned a sweeping Clinton-era rule that blocked road access to 56 million acres of national forests, saying the regulation has become bogged down in litigation from states and environmentalists.
The Forest Service instead will begin a process that gives the affected 39 states a major role in how “roadless” areas will be conserved and protected.
“The prospect of endless lawsuits represents neither progress nor certainty for communities,” Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman said.
“Our announcement today illustrates our commitment to working closely with the nation’s governors to meet the needs of local communities and to maintaining the undeveloped character of the most pristine areas of the national forest system,” Mrs. Veneman said.
The new rule gives governors and local communities an active role to determine which areas need road construction to access the forest and which areas need extra protection of “roadless” designation.
The new rule also would assure that private landholders within or near national forests have a say in the process to ensure continued access to their property.
The proposal was criticized by environmentalists, who called it a “crippling blow” to a popular policy.
“The Bush administration’s announcement today will immediately imperil wild forests across the country, leaving them vulnerable to commercial timber sales and road building,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. “These wild forests are special places of national significance and need a national policy to ensure their proper management.”
Critics of the Clinton rule, which was imposed in the final days of his administration, called it a haphazard plan that, in trying to stop timber thinning, also blocked the access needed to prevent and fight forest fires and maintain critical infrastructure, such as dams and utilities.
“This injects common sense and local control into Clinton’s 11th-hour, mindless edict,” said Rep. Richard W. Pombo, California Republican and chairman of the House Resources Committee. “Forest management decisions should be made at the state level by people who know individual forest conditions best, not by bureaucrats surrounded by concrete in Washington.”
Lawsuits against the Clinton rule were filed in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, North Dakota, Wyoming and the District of Columbia, and a federal district court struck it down last year for violating the Wilderness Act and National Environmental Policy Act.
Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, a Republican, praised the administration for fully involving states in the decision-making process. His is one of the states that sued the government to block implementation of the act.
Under the Clinton administration, he said, governors were denied maps of the areas to be eliminated from most public uses.
“What we are offered today is a partnership from our federal government,” Mr. Kempthorne said. “We are the United States of America, not the federal government of America.”
The new rule, which has not been completed, will undergo 60 days of public comment. In the interim, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth will have the power to approve any new road construction, an arrangement that also will remain in effect for 18 months after the rule is completed.
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