This news from The Wilderness Society, posted by Jane Clark

"The Administration could not have selected a more divisive and
inflammatory nominee to oversee our national forests."


Statement on Nomination of Mark Rey as Undersecretary of Agriculture for
Natural Resources and the Environment

By Michael Francis - Director, Forests Program, The Wilderness Society


We are deeply dismayed at the nomination of Mark Rey as Undersecretary
of Agriculture, a position that would put him in charge of overseeing our
national forests.  This nomination represents yet another volley in
President Bush's war on the environment.

Mark Rey has dedicated his career to advancing the agenda of the timber
industry.  His view that our national forests are merely places in need
of tree removal is embodied in the many destructive proposals he has
chosen to champion in his decades as the voice of the timber industry.
Not least among them was the disastrous salvage rider of 1995, which
exempted logging in our national forests from all environmental laws and
compelled the logging of thousands of acres of old-growth forests in the
Pacific Northwest that the Forest Service itself had declined to cut for
environmental reasons.

President Bush has made his animosity toward our environment clear.  In
particular he has repeatedly attacked forest protections that the
American people strongly support.  He has undermined protections of our
last roadless areas, suspended regulations designed to safeguard forest
health and moved to open public lands to increased drilling and mining.
And now the President has nominated a man who has dedicated his life to
expanding the reach of the timber industry to a position as primary
policymaker for our national forests.

The Administration could not have selected a more divisive and
inflammatory nominee to oversee our national forests.

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