12/7/06

ACTION ALERT

WALDEN SALVAGE LOGGING BILL DIES WITH SESSION

Life is too short for salvage logging– especially if you are a Republican senator with two working days left in the year.

According to the Associated Press, Sens. Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) on Dec. 6 said there was not enough time left in the 109th Congress to pass H.R. 4200, the "Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act.” (The senators go home for the year on Thursday, Dec. 7.)

Thanks to continuing pressure from concerned citizens, scientists and environmentalists, the bill was unable to gain traction in the Senate this year.

“There was little bipartisan support for a salvage bill in this Congress,” Smith said.

The salvage logging bill, introduced last November by Reps. Greg Walden (R-OR) and Brian Baird (D-WA) in the House, would have allowed the U.S. Forest Service to salvage log and build roads after forest fires, droughts, storms, and other vaguely defined “natural disturbances. ” The bill would have exempted the Forest Service from consulting with other agencies, and allowed for merely nominal public input. Projects would have been rushed through on an “emergency” basis, ignoring ecosystem, watershed, and wildlife protections.

The bill passed the House on May 17 by a vote of 243 to 182, but then languished in a Senate committee for the remainder of the session.

As a result of November’s election, Democrats will control both houses of Congress next year. The bill is even less likely to find support among the incoming Democratic representatives and senators.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Congratulate yourselves on a job well done. The letters, emails and phone calls Forests Forever supporters sent to their political representatives helped keep this bad bill bottled up in the Senate this year. While its sponsors have promised to bring it up again in the next session, the new political alignment promises rough going for anti-environmental bills such as this.