** You can reach Members through the Capitol Hill switchboard at (202)
224-3121.** Please act now! Call your Representative tonight and early
Wednesday.
McInnis/Walden Logging Bill H.R. 1904
Headed for Vote on Tuesday, May 20--
The ill-named "Forest Health Restoration Act" passed through the House
Resources and Agriculture Committees and is headed for a floor vote
tomorrow. This bill does nothing to honestly protect lives and communities
from forest fires and is more of a vehicle to increase commercial logging.
Please urge your Representative to OPPOSE the McInnis/Walden
anti-community, pro-logging bill.
Representative George Miller (D-CA) will be offering a substitute amendment
providing an alternative to the McInnis bill, which you should urge your
Representative to support. The Miller substitute would require agencies to
spend money to protect homes and community first, where the work will do the
most good. The House is scheduled to vote Tuesday, May 20. Call early and
often! This bill is too bad not to act!
The McInnis bill, H.R. 1904 - along with every aspect of the Bush
administration's so-called "Healthy Forest Initiative" -- is trying to take
away nearly every tool that forest activists use to defend forests and
wildlife. Our ability to appeal timber sales, to litigate, to participate in
vital decisions that affect our public lands -- these are all at stake. It
is a shameless initiative that plays on the public's fear of wildfires and
manufactured claims of "analysis paralysis" to enact sweeping legislation
that will devastate national forests and the ability of citizens to protect
them.
The bill seeks to cut out the public from public forest management and
would give unprecedented latitude to agency managers to promote harmful
logging projects across the federal public forests. This bill also
promotes new subsidies for "biomass" logging, federal assistance for
private forest owners and the ability of Forest Service managers to plan
1000 acre logging projects with the sparsest of environmental impact
analysis.
Every action that forest activists make does make a difference - especially
now. Victories are never won in a day. Victories require unflagging
persistence, dedication and hope that even in dark moments, the truth will
prevail. That is why they are called victories. That is why we are
activists. The science is on our side. The truth is on our side.
The McInnis/Walden bill misses on all of the major components that a
responsible, science-based, community protection plan should have. The US
Forest Service Fire Research lab has found that the best method to protect
homes from a forest fire is by creating defensible space 100 feet around a
home and 500 meters around communities. For information on real home safety
and responsible fire management see www.sierraclub.org/logging and
www.firewise.org
Here are the major points where the McInnis/Walden bill fails:
-- FAILS to allow citizens to retain their rights to be involved in
federal land management
-- FAILS to prioritize fuel reduction treatment within Community
Protection Zones, 500 meters around communities
-- FAILS to require federal agency managers to fully study the impact of
proposed logging projects
-- FAILS to provide adequate protection for wild forests, sensitive fish
and wildlife habitat and clean water
-- FAILS to responsibly direct taxpayer dollars and federal resources to
assist homeowners and community leaders
This bill cuts the Heart Out of National Environmental Policy Act
It allows agencies to ignore alternative actions that would be less harmful
to the forests. It would allow one agency manager to design a single
alternative and not require consideration of other possible alternatives.
Federal courts have called this consideration of alternatives the very
"heart of NEPA."
This bill tips the Scales of Justice
The bill tries to force courts to place forest issues ahead of any other
civil or criminal cases on their dockets. By requiring judges to give
deference to the federal bureaucrats when deciding what relief is granted in
a case - including after a project has been found in violation of the law -
the McInnis bill attempts to require a court to tip the scales of justice in
favor of proponents of a logging project. Analysts call this an astounding
and possibly unprecedented change in American legal standards.
This bill cuts the Public Out of the Process
Eliminates the current environmental review process, the one opportunity for
the public to comment on and review agency decisions, and the ability of the
public to appeal agency decisions on almost 100 million acres of public
land. It adds a requirement for a public meeting, but it generally serves
little purpose, as there would only be an already-planned "alternative" to
discuss.
For the sake of wild forests, keep those calls coming.
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To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see:
http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp
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