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Walden: Forest rules likely to stand Clinton bans roads, most logging on 60 million acres of public land By Paul Fattig Neither Congress nor the Bush administration would be able to muster enough political muscle to rescind the forest-protection legacy being left by President Clinton. That prediction was made not by a hopeful environmental activist but by 2nd District Congressman Greg Walden, R-Hood River. His presage came Friday afternoon as Clinton declared nearly 60 million acres of national forest land, including nearly 2 million acres in Oregon, off-limits to road building as well as most logging. On local national forests, that includes setting aside 81,417 roadless acres on the Rogue River forest and 287,063 roadless acres on the Siskiyou. "Will there be a repeal? Probably not in most cases," said Walden, a member of the Agriculture Committee, in a telephone interview from his Washington, D.C., office. "I don�t believe there are enough votes to do that. "And Bush won�t be able to come in with the stroke of a pen and change these things overnight." Having said that, Walden, noting some members of Congress want to repeal many of Clinton�s environmental programs, added he intended to work with the opposition to at least mitigate the programs� effects. The roadless package and other programs have been adamantly opposed by the timber and mining industries, many recreational groups and advocates of multiple use on public land. "While we don�t have the votes to undo them, there may be more reasonable ways to implement them so we don�t exclude people from their public land," Walden said. "An outright ban (on multiple use in roadless areas) doesn�t make a lot of sense to me," he added. "We have to have some balance here." But Dominick DellaSala, director of the Klamath-Siskiyou Regional Program for the World Wildlife Fund, believes Clinton�s roadless area package is helping to provide much-needed environmental balance. "It�s a remarkable achievement � Clinton will be remembered as the environmental president," predicted DellaSala, an Ashland resident who attended the Washington, D.C., ceremony announcing the roadless-area policy. Clinton�s environmental legacy, which includes establishing 14 national monuments in the past eight years, has been applauded by the environmental community. "This roadless area is the largest created since Teddy Roosevelt," DellaSala said. "It�s clearly a historic event." He agreed with Walden that repealing Clinton�s environmental legacy would be difficult. "It would be an uphill battle for the Bush administration," he said. "For one thing, it would be going against the tide of public opinion." The Forest Service received more than 1.6 million comments on the proposal with the lion�s share supportive, he said. Moreover, polls have repeatedly demonstrated strong support for protecting intact roadless areas on public land, he said. "That is what the incoming administration would be up against if they tried to change it," he said. "That�s not to say they would not do damage. But it would be a political black eye." DellaSala, who supports creating a million-acre national monument in Southern Oregon, did express disappointment that the roadless package did not include a prohibition on mining. "But, despite the fact it doesn�t deal with the mining issue, this conservation legacy is truly historic," he reiterated. "Multiple use has been the rule on our public lands. Roadless-area protection has a lot of catching up to do." Under the plan, the Forest Service will ban road building in 58.5 million acres of federal forests where no roads currently exist, including 9.3 million acres in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. The regulations limit future logging in those areas to only activities that "restore and preserve" the forest. Commercial timber contracts already in the government pipeline will be allowed to be completed. Prior to Clinton�s announcement, the Forest Service had planned to cut about 16.6 million board feet of timber on the roadless areas in the Rogue River forest through the year 2004, compared to about 5 million board feet on Siskiyou forest roadless areas through the same period, said Mary Marrs, spokeswoman for the two forests. The annual harvest on each forest is about 24 million board feet, although court decisions following environmental lawsuits and other factors in recent years have kept the annual cut well below that, she added. Back in Washington, D.C., Walden said that Clinton�s environmental programs will be closely scrutinized. "It�s fair for the Congress and the new administration to look at what the Clinton administration did at the last minute," he said. "They are trying to leave their stamp and do something they couldn�t do legislatively. Many of us had been warned it would happen." Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.