Congress moves to accelerate salvage logging

The House passed legislation on May 18 that relaxes environmental laws in order to accelerate logging and replanting of public lands impacted by severe weather events, including wildfires, hurricanes and ice storms. Critics say the bill is unnecessary and undermines environmental protections in a bid to aid timber companies. The bill passed by a bipartisan vote of 243-182, with 41 Democrats joining the Republican majority to approve the measure. Current regulations allow salvage projects to become bogged down in red tape and litigation, supporters of the bill said, and these delays allow the damaged wood to decay and lose its commercial value. "The wood is still good, but only for a finite time," said Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), a cosponsor of the legislation. "Every day you delay, the value of the wood declines." The legislation, called the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act, allows the US Forest Service and the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to develop salvage logging management practices and plans prior to a disaster. In order to expedite approval, the bill gives the federal land management agencies the authority to exempt these plans from provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. The bill potentially affects more than 190 million acres. Its provisions are applicable to tracts of at least 1,000 acres. It will allow federal land managers to "salvage sooner, replant sooner and restore the forest quicker," said Rep. Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican and co-author of the bill. Walden said the legislation reflects careful compromise–it is the product of more than two years of work and has gone through some 50 drafts–and will help the nation boost its domestic timber production. "As Americans we like our wood products," Walden said. "If we can't get the wood here in the United States, we import it from abroad where I dare say environmental laws are lax. So if you are going to use wood, doesn't it make sense to first used the dead burned wood, the burned dead trees, rather than to cut down the green ones?" Walden touted estimates from the Congressional Budget Office that found the bill would increase timber receipts from salvage logging by 40 percent and potentially net federal land management agencies hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Opponents said the bill attempts to fix a problem that does not exist and will increase the number of environmentally destructive salvage logging projects. They rejected the premise that timber companies lack access to salvage logging–some 35 percent of all logging in national forests over the last six years came from timber salvage. "The Forest Service and BLM have an abundance of existing authorities that allow for timber salvage to be completed on our public lands with the appropriate checks and balances," said Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM). "This represents yet another attempt by the majority in this Congress to dismantle our most paramount conservation laws." Federal land management agencies can currently get a waiver to expedite projects from the White House Council for Environmental Quality, Udall said, "and they have never been turned down." "The bill is ripe with discretion for political appointees," said Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR). "We need professional management and certainty and this bill won't get us there." Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) said the bill allows a long list of events to be declared emergencies–including drought and insect infestation "far beyond the normal definition of an emergency that requires emergency action." "[There are] very few forests that are not experiencing a catastrophic event on a daily basis under the definition in this bill," Boehlert said. Democrats failed with four amendments that aimed to limit the scope of the bill, including a proposal that would have blocked the Forest Service from executing any pre-approved management practice or recovery project unless the agency certifies that it will not decrease forest regeneration or increase fire risk. The amendment, introduced by Udall, reflects a study published in January in the journal Science that found salvage logging after the 2002 Biscuit Fire in Oregon reduced regeneration of new trees by 70 percent and increased the risk of future wildfires. "The majority of peer-reviewed science says that salvage logging is not good for our forests," said Udall, who added that every major national environmental group opposes the legislation. "When there is a fire it is human instinct to get in there and want to fix things," added Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA). "But if you look at the beautiful forests we have... they have done very, very well without us for 10,000 years." Walden said the science of forest recovery is "a mixed bag." "While the science itself may offer competing views, there is broad agreement that if the decision is made in a forest to remove dead or dying trees and replant, quick action is best," Walden said. "The Udall amendment is based on the theory that salvage increases fire risk. Wildfire fighting associations representing more than 12,000 fire fighters disagree." In addition to the support of wildfire fighting organizations, the bill has the endorsement of timber groups, home builders and the Society of American Forestry, a group that represents some 15,000 professional forest managers, researchers and educators. But 169 scientists sent a letter to members of Congress in March calling for the defeat of the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act. Dr. James Karr, Professor of Aquatics Sciences and Biology, University of Washington, who signed the letter, called the legislation "misguided because it distorts or ignores recent scientific advances." "No substantive evidence supports the idea that fire-adapted forests might be improved by logging after a fire," said signatory Dr. Reed Noss, professor of Conservation Biology for the University of Central Florida. "In fact, many carefully conducted studies have concluded just the opposite. Most plants and animals in these forests are adapted to periodic fires and other natural disturbances. They have a remarkable way of recovering–literally rising from the ashes–because they have evolved with and even depend upon fire." Dr. Tania Schoennagel, a fire scientist from the University of Colorado, warned that the logging legislation could lead to increased fire risks. "Post-disturbance logging can increase the reburn potential of the site by concentrating flammable slash [small branches] at or near the ground, which can easily ignite and spread fire. The large, less ignitable fuels [tree trunks], which provide important perching, nesting and feeding sites for wildlife, are removed by logging." "We need to change our thinking on salvage logging. There are other values in the forest," said Dr. Richard Hutto professor and director of the Avian Science Center at the University of Montana. "In fact, a burned area is probably the most ecologically sensitive place one could choose for logging. We talk about forest restoration after a fire, but it just got restored by fire itself. That's what fire does. Environmentalists have long warned that post-fire logging does more harm than good. "Proponents of expedited logging can't provide a significant body of evidence that a nationwide program of logging in forests recovering from disturbance is scientifically justified," said Dominick DellaSala, Ph.D., a forest ecologist for the World Wildlife Fund. "Of the more than 30 scientific papers on post-fire logging published to date, not a single one indicates that logging provides benefits to ecosystems regenerating after disturbance." Similar legislation was introduced in the Senate last fall, but has not yet been considered.