On Christmas Eve the Bush Administration gave the timber industry a gift of enormous proportions by revoking protections on our nation's largest national forest.
When the Bush Administration exempted Alaska's Tongass National Forest from the Clinton Administration's "Roadless Rule" - which prohibits logging and road-building in our nation's most pristine forests - it opened up the world's largest remaining coastal temperate rainforest to clear-cutting by timber companies.
The Administration justified its action by saying that only 3 percent of the Tongass would be affected by the rule change.
It's important to note that two-thirds of the Tongass National Forest is rock, ice and moss. Only 4 percent of the Tongass ever contained the biggest and most productive old-growth forests - the ecological heart of America's rainforest. To date, over half of these areas have already been clear-cut and scarred by logging roads.
Think of it this way: Using the same statistical shell game, a decision to pave and clear-cut all of Yellowstone National Park could be described as impacting just 3 percent of America's National Park System.
Now, under the exemption from the Roadless Rule, more than 300,000 additional acres of forests have been targeted for clear-cutting. The Bush Administration and their allies in the timber industry have targeted these tracts of land because they contain the biggest trees even though logging on these lands will leave an industrial-scale footprint of clear-cuts and road-building across 2.6 million acres of watersheds.
The "Roadless Rule" is the most popular conservation policy in history. In fact, the Forest Service has received close to 3 million public comments on the rule, with the vast majority in support of strong protections. Most recently, when the Bush Administration sought comment on their proposal to exempt the Tongass from Roadless Rule protections, nearly a quarter of a million public comments were delivered to the Forest Service. Less than 1 percent of the comments favored removing protections.
Shamefully, the "gift" was given despite the public's overwhelming support for conserving wild areas in the Alaskan rainforest for the enjoyment and edification of future generations. And the price tag, billed to American taxpayers, is steep.
We lose millions of dollars every year - $35 alone million in 2002 - because the Forest Service spends far more money preparing logging projects and building logging roads than the timber industry pays in return for the trees. With this latest action, American taxpayers will be fleeced again for this timber industry subsidy.
Rather than catering to the timber industry, the Bush Administration should have fulfilled the wishes of the American public and maintained the protections of the Tongass. It would have been a priceless gift to future generations of environmentally conscious Americans.
