Forest Service Policy Blasted

Forest Service exempting itself from a major environmental law-- NEPA

The Forest Service has changed the way it updates the management plans for each of its national forests, exempting itself from a major environmental law- and the switch has some Democratic lawmakers and environmentalists angry.

Forest plan updates used to fall under the National Environmental Policy Act or NEPA, which requires analysis of environmental impacts and public comment.

In December, the Forest Service declared the plan updates categorically excluded from NEPA and set up a new process that Southwest Regional Forester Harv Forsgren argues actually gives the public a bigger role.

Others disagree.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman and Rep. Tom Udall, both New Mexico Democrats, wrote separate letters to the Forest Service in December.

"The administration's plan essentially eliminates the long-standing practice of meaningful forest planning," Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement Monday. "It's a bad proposal that won't benefit either our nation's forests or those who visit them."

Udall wrote in December that "efforts to include the public in the forest planning process will be compromised" and the exclusion from NEPA "will likely result in the failure to evaluate the cumulative impacts of land management decisions."

Forest management plans guide everything from logging to off-road vehicle routes.

Forsgren said the new planning rule allows for public participation and collaboration throughout the process rather than in specific comment periods.

He also said environmental reviews will be more stringent and "the most currently available science" will be required.

"Those analyses are enhanced under this rule from anything we've ever done," he said.

Forsgren added that the plan revisions will be completed more quickly and will offer more of a vision for forest management than specific requirements of what should happen.

Environmental groups are not convinced.

This week, Santa Fe-based WildEarth Guardians and the national group Defenders of Wildlife filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., challenging the new planning rule.

"This exemption eliminates vital opportunities for the public to understand and weigh in on forest management decisions which profoundly affect wildlife, water, natural resources and the local communities that depend on them," Defenders President Roger Schlickeisen said in a statement.

Bryan Bird of WildEarth Guardians agreed.

"We are actively trying to participate and it is becoming harder and harder under the Bush administration," he said. "This has significant consequences around the nation, but especially here in New Mexico."

All the forest plans in New Mexico are out of date. The five forest plans will be revised starting this year or in 2008. An update for the Kiowa and Rita Blanca national grasslands is under way

Copyright 2007 Albuquerque Journal - Reprinted with permission


 

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