For Immediate Release: September 24, 2002
Contact: Annie Strickler, (202) 675-2384

         Sierra Club Criticizes False Promises on Fire Protection
Senators' Compromises Do Nothing to Protect Communities, Citizens' Rights

Washington, D.C. -- As negotiations continue in the U.S. Senate over two
measures couched as fire prevention legislation, the Sierra Club is urging
Senators to embrace a plan that makes protecting communities, not timber
company profits, the Forest Service's top priority. The Sierra Club Board
of Directors passed a resolution this weekend criticizing an amendment to
the Interior Appropriations bill proposed by Senators Dianne Feinstein
(D-CA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) that would fail to adequately protect
communities from fires, gut important environmental protections under the
guise of forest fire prevention, and increase destructive commercial
logging.

Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) is exploiting this summer's forest fires to push
his vision of forest management, one that would eliminate the effectiveness
of important environmental laws and fail to protect communities at risk of
catastrophic fire. In his bid to change forest protection law, Senator
Craig has now twice held up the repayment of funds for this summer's fire
suppression costs. Late Monday afternoon he led the second effort to
filibuster the Interior appropriations bill that would provide $850 million
for the federal costs of this season's fire suppression efforts.

In trying to reach a compromise with Craig, Senators Feinstein and Wyden
have crafted separate proposals that offer few improvements to Craig's
amendment and effectively eliminate the ability of the courts to stop
destructive logging projects. The compromise language offers little to
protect communities from wild fires, and instead puts the interests of
timber companies ahead of Americans whose communities are at risk from
fire.

"No matter which way you cut it, these measures promote destructive logging
deep in the backcountry under the auspices of hazardous fuel reduction. At
the same time they slam the door on Americans who want to protect the
special places where we enjoy hiking, hunting and fish," said Pope.
"Senator Feinstein should look to a plan that provides adequate protection
for California's communities, not one that cuts the public out of public
land management."

The full text of the resolution reads as follows: "The Sierra Club Board of
Directors expresses its deep dismay at U.S. Senators Feinstein (D-CA) and
Wyden (D-OR) over their unconscionable attempts to pass an appropriations
rider that would suspend environmental laws to allow increased logging on
federal lands under the guise of fire risk reduction.  While the thinning
of undergrowth can reduce fire severity, such activities are already exempt
from environmental analysis and appeals under current regulations, and the
Club supports reduction of flammable brush.  However, the logging rider
introduced by Senators Feinstein and Wyden does nothing to require brush
reduction but, rather, suspends certain environmental laws and allows
increased logging of healthy, green, mature trees on public lands.
Scientists have concluded that such logging increases fire severity by
removing the more fire-resistant structural elements (large trees) from
forests and, by reducing forest canopy cover, creates hotter, drier, more
fire-prone conditions on the floor.

"The Sierra Club strongly opposes this logging rider.  We are angered by
the destructive logging plans proposed by the Bush Administration and some
Senate Republicans.  We find it similarly disturbing that Senators
Feinstein and Wyden have chosen to propose their own destructive logging
rider instead of working to protect our national forests and communities by
advocating credible measures to curb severe fires."

The Sierra Club is urging Senators to look at the solid facts and strong
public opinion that support a proactive, solution-oriented plan for
tackling forest fires. The Sierra Club and other environmental groups last
month offered this in announcing a new vision for protecting communities.
The seven-point plan includes:

·    Do the most important work first. Make protection of communities from
fires the Forest Service's Number One Priority.
·    Provide meaningful funding. This program should be a minimum of five
years and funded at $2 billion a year to go directly to fireproofing homes
and removing hazardous fuels in the Community Protection Zones.
·    Match personnel to work. Shift Forest Service personnel skilled in
preparing brush clearing and thinning projects from backcountry, low
priority areas to the Community Protection Zones.
·  Carry out immediately the vast majority of fuel reduction projects in
the Community Protection Zones that raise no significant environmental
issues.
·    Restore natural fires to have natural forests. Prescribed burns can
help to reduce fuel buildup and restore healthy forest habitats.
·    Protect our ancient and wild forest from logging and logging roads.
·    Stop the attack on forest protection safeguards

For more information, please go to http://www.sierraclub.org.

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Erin E. Jordahl
Director, Iowa Chapter Sierra Club
3839 Merle Hay Road, Suite 280
Des Moines, IA 50310
515-277-8868
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