Political Commentary: Joan McCarter

Roadless Rule “Timeout” Will Make Room for Reason

By Joan McCarter, 5-31-09

	The Bitterroot Divide between Montana and Idaho. Courtesy photo by George Wuerthner.

Back in March, 25 U.S. Senators and 131 Representatives sent letters to USDA Secretary Vilsack requesting interim protection of all roadless areas. That is what they’ve got, for the time being, in every state but Idaho, which developed it’s own roadless areas plan, and is exempted from this order. Protecting the roadless areas was also one of President Obama’s campaign promises.

To get up to speed on where we stood on the issue:

Agriculture Department officials cast the order as a procedural timeout, and said they expected Vilsack to approve some projects that meet the administration’s standards for responsible forest practices. They noted the move exempted national forests in Idaho, which has developed its own plan to manage roadless areas.

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule—which President Clinton issued shortly before leaving office in 2001—had protected nearly 60 million acres of national forest land from logging and other development, largely in Western states. It touched off a protracted court battle that pitted conservation groups against the timber industry and several state governments.

The result was a pair of decisions from different federal courts. One upheld the Clinton rule. The other struck it down. Both decisions are being appealed and could wind up before the Supreme Court.

The court cases are going to move forward, and that includes a suit to halt Idaho’s implementation of the Idaho plan. Additionally, Colorado is working on its own rule for managing its more than 4 million roadless acres of national forest. For the time being, it’s covered by the directive as well.

The most immediate and critical effect is to block planned timber sales in Tongass National Forest in Alaska, halting one of the most controversial of th Bush administration’s forest management plans released in January, 2008. The Tongass plan would have opened millions of acres of currently wild and roadless federal land to logging and road building.

At 17 million acres, roughly the size of West Virginia, the Tongass National Forest in southeastern Alaska is the country’s largest national forest and the world’s largest intact coastal temperate rain forest. It contains grizzly and black bears, wolves, eagles and five species of wild Alaskan salmon.

Under the new plan, about 3.4 million acres of the forest would be open to logging and development. Of this acreage, about 2.4 million is in roadless areas, and about 663,000 acres is considered to have trees valuable for timber production.

There’s just over half a million acres that has valuable timber, but the Bush administration had opened the whole 3.4 million acreage for road building. Seattle PI columnist Joel Connelly wrote about the rule:

OK, the 17-million-acre Tongass already has a lot of designated wilderness. One is pressed to think of a major icefield that does not enjoy the highest measure of federal protection.

The problem is, wild creatures live in low-elevation forests and valleys and wetlands. About 18 months ago, I watched brown bears feeding in an estuary off Upper Tenakee Inlet of Chichagof Island, an area slated to get new roads and be clear-cut.

Does this make sense? A total of 3,700 miles of roads now crisscross the Tongass and adjoining native lands.

And the U.S. Treasury? In 2002, the U.S. Forest Service spent $36 million on its Tongass timber sales program, and received back just $1.2 million from timber companies.

Not a great return for the public on that one, but in the previous administration, public return seemed to be much less of a priority than private gain. The primary concern with this new interim plan, which could be extended for a second year, is that the decision-making is vested in Vilsack instead of in a real review process. But given the slowness with which administrative positions are being filled, that might be a blessing. Certainly Bush holdovers in the agency weren’t committed to following a scientifically based process for making decisions, so if they’re not pulling the strings on this one, so much the better.

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