The Roadless Area Conservation Act was introduced on June 5, 2002. This bill would "protect" 58.5 million acres of our National Forests'.

To date the Forest Service has received more than 2.2 million comments favoring roadless protection. This outpouring of public response is almost ten times greater than that of any other rule in history. :eek:

Here is some of the green propaganda:
http://www.enn.com/direct/display-release.asp?id=7079
http://www.enn.com/direct/display-release.asp?id=7073
http://www.enn.com/direct/display-release.asp?id=7071

Crowdog

I hate to tell you, but I told you so. Say what, what's he talking about? I'm talking about the fact that like I said last week, everybody is so fricking wound up about boxer's bullshit that they have completely blown past an issue that is, IMO, a hundred times more important and much bigger in impact. This rule is NOT new, what this is is some green demo legislators trying to make an end run around the public, hoping you won't notice. Yeah, you missed it, didn't you. The fricking politicos are trying to CODIFY the Roadless Rule that the Bush administration stopped and is reviewing and a Judge last year said was illegal. Get real folks, yeah the boxer thing is big, but like I said, too plain idiotic to come to fruition in its present form, but this is the real deal .

And its scary, because no one is really seeming
to notice, that letter from some reps to Bush that has
been circulating the past day, you will notice that
its signed by LESS THAN 40 LEGISLATORS! There seems
to be heavy congressional support (or congressional
apathy) for this, and the eco-nazis are 100% behind
this thing, whereas the boxer thing has received
likewarm response in Congress and you don't see every
eco-nazi group in the country speaking out about it.

Read this letter from a number of reps that see exactly what this is and what is coming. DO NOT ignore this:

###

June 5, 2002

The Honorable George W. Bush

President of the United States

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Bush:

We are writing to express our strong opposition to any attempts at this
time to
codify or administratively implement the Roadless Area Conservation
Rule, and
we applaud your leadership on this complex issue.

Mr. President, as your Administration continues to formulate an
alternative
Roadless rule, we urge you to diligently seek out meaningful public
input,
particularly from the local citizens most directly affected by the
process. We also
hope that you will continue to work with a broad array of stakeholders,
including
environmentalists, recreational enthusiasts, state and local foresters,
the forests
products industry, and other interested parties, in search of a
consensus
resolution to this divisive issue. Finally, we urge you to carefully
weigh the
implications of this rule’s impact on our ability to protect at-risk
lands from
catastrophic wildfire.

As you know, when Federal District Court Judge Edward Lodge blocked
implementation of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule last year, he
described
the rule as "fundamentally flawed" and the rulemaking process as
"grossly
inadequate." He confirmed that "a Band-aid approach to something this
controversial may mask or obscure the symptoms for political purposes
but does
not address the ‘hard look’ analysis for a cure as required by NEPA
[National
Environmental Policy Act] before environmentally altering actions are
put into
effect."

The Court validated what elected officials, local communities and
forest
user
groups had argued throughout the process. Specifically, the Court
clearly and
correctly pointed out that the previous rule: 1) violated environmental
laws; 2)
disregarded numerous public notice and comment requirements; and 3)
ignored
the basic understanding of due process when developing and implementing
the
rule. Despite these findings, we are concerned that various
environmental groups
and certain members of Congress continue to push for implementation of
the rule.

This case needs to be carefully considered in the courts, and
appropriate steps
must be taken to ensure that procedural and environmental laws are
respected.
Any attempt to codify the legally enjoined rule would be tantamount to
a

Congressional end-run of landmark environmental laws like NEPA.

Thank you for your leadership and your commitment on the issue. We
appreciate
your recognition of the importance of this process to citizens and
communities in
all corners of the country, and look forward to working with you in the
future on this
matter.

Sincerely,



John Thune (SD-AL) Richard Pombo (CA-11)

Scott McInnis (CO-03) William M. Thomas (CA-21)

W.J. (Billy) Tauzin (LA-03) Don Young (AK-AL)

Jack Kingston (GA-01) Gary G. Miller (CA-41)

Barbara Cubin (WY-AL) Mark Green (WI-08)

Doc Hastings (WA-04) Greg Walden (OR-02)

John Boozman (AR-03) Michael K. Simpson (ID-02)

C.L. "Butch" Otter (ID-01) John Cooksey (LA-05)

Jim Gibbons (NV-02) Chris Cannon (UT-03)

George Radanovich (CA-19) Mac Thornberry (TX-13)

Bob Stump (AZ-03) Bob Schaffer (CO-04)

George R. Nethercutt, Jr. (WA-05) Charles H. Taylor (NC-11)

John Peterson (PA-05) John E. Sununu (NH-01)

Jo Ann Emerson (MO-08) Thomas G. Tancredo (CO-06)

Walter Jones (NC-03) Tom Osborne (NE-03)

Mike Ross (AR-04) Dennis R. Rehberg (MT-AL)

Jerry Lewis (CA-40) Ken Calvert (CA-43)

Joel Hefley (CO-05) Duncan Hunter (CA-52)

Wally Herger (CA-02) Joe Skeen (NM-02)

Randy "Duke" Cunningham (CA-51) John J. Duncan, Jr. (TN-02)

John T. Doolittle (CA-04) Elton Gallagly (CA-23)

J.D. Hayworth (AZ-06) Ric Keller (FL-08)

Kevin Brady (TX-08)

Oh yeah, one more thing. YOu say you don't want any more wilderness, well this bill, since its introduction as the Roadless Rule, will create over 58 million acres of DE FACTO WILDERNESS! Kind of makes the boxer thing look small, doesn't it. Don't ignore boxer, but PLEASE , don't let this one slide. We did too much work a couple years ago on this to let it all just sneak by us.

Brad,

Attacking me for opposing Boxer is not going to help any cause. I am wholeheartedly against more wilderness and roadless areas. I am sure everyone else here is too. The Protest Rally isn't just about protesting Boxer's bill. It is also about protesting the continual loss of public land for multiple use. But letting Boxer slime through with her bill isn't going to happen without a fight. Peter was right. CA is represented by a majority of fruits and nuts. We can't depend on them to stand up for what is right, or we will lose.

The same goes for the Roadless Conservation Act. This is VERY important for us to defeat. I will dedicate many hours to defeating it, but it is going to be timesliced with the protest rally until after July 11.

We are all on the same team. Please aim your frustration accordingly.

Jon

Lawmakers seek to make 'roadless rule' law of land
Forests: 173 in House support ban on logging, new roads

June 06, 2002

Matthew Daly; The Associated Press



WASHINGTON - A Clinton administration ban on logging and road-building in a third of the nation's federal forests would become law under a bill introduced Wednesday by U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Bainbridge Island) and 173 other House members.

The proposal would codify the so-called roadless rule, which bans new roads in 58.5 million acres of untouched national forest land, except in rare circumstances.

The Bush administration has said it supports the ban, but environmentalists complain that the administration has not strongly defended the rule in court. The ban needs to become law to insulate pristine forests from political whims, supporters said.

"We need a law to protect the forests, no matter which way the wind blows in Washington," Inslee said, noting that some trees on federal land are older than the country itself.

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), the bill's chief co-sponsor, said the proposal was more than an effort to codify an agency rule.

"We are enshrining in law the views and values of the American people," Boehlert said, citing a recent national poll showing that 76 percent of those surveyed - including 60 percent of Republicans - supported protecting roadless areas.

The bill faces an uphill fight in the Republican-controlled House. Only 18 of the bill's 174 co-sponsors are Republican, and no public hearing has been scheduled.

More than 40 members of Congress, mostly Republican and mostly from the West, sent a letter to President Bush on Wednesday urging him to oppose the bill, which they said would cut off access to significant portions of national forests and increase the risk of catastrophic fire. The bill also would handcuff development efforts, opponents said.

Most of the 58.5 million acres set aside are in the West, although they spread from Alaska's Tongass National Forest to Florida's Apalachicola National Forest.

Rep. Scott McInnis (R-Colo.), chairman of the Forests and Forest Health Subcommittee of the House Resources Committee, called the roadless rule a "sham" and said the Clinton administration had ignored significant Western opposition when it implemented the rule just before Clinton left office.

"It is nothing short of astonishing that national environmental groups and certain elected officials in Washington, D.C., continue to push the rule in the face of a federal judge's injunction," McInnis said.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge in Boise blocked the rule from taking effect last year, calling the policy a "Band-Aid approach" toward forest conservation that could do irreparable harm.

A coalition of environmental groups has appealed Lodge's decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Bush administration declined to join the appeal, a decision that lawyers for the groups say hurt their cause and showed the administration's true position on the roadless rule.

Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey, who oversees forest issues, disputed that Wednesday. The administration stands by its commitment to protect roadless areas in national forests, he said.

The USDA is working on a new rule that would be "better balanced" than the Clinton rule, Rey said, "and most importantly that will pass legal muster, which the Clinton rule has not so far."

The Inslee-Boehlert bill, which is supported by a host of environmental groups, does not resolve the legal issues raised by the May 2001 court ruling, Rey said.

But supporters said a federal law would make the court ruling moot and demonstrate bipartisan support for the roadless rule. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Edmonds), backs a similar measure in the Senate.


© Associated Press

Jon, please don't take any of this personally, as you said its frustration, and not aimed at any one in particular. There are many others devoting very large amounts of time and energy to defeating the boxer plan, and it is commendable. There are several others that think I'm attacking them personally,and I'm not. It's just that I've been down so many roads with the ecos, and there's a trick at every turn. Those folks have far too much of a head start and numbers for us to not take anything they do seriously, but I hate to put too much emphasis on any one thing. If you feel I've attacked you personally, please accept my apology for if nothing else giving you that impression. Sometimes I tend to piss people off, but I've learned not to take any prisoners in this fight and go about my business, sometimes extremely wound up!

As for the Roadless Conspiracy, what really pisses me off is the scope and the potential consequences of the thing, and how it is so fricking illegal. 58,000,000 acres of de facto wilderness, the idea made me so mad my head spun 2 or more years ago, and now the damn thing is back stronger than ever. And most of congress supporting the thing, this is absolute lunacy.

I guess my point with all this ranting is...what the hell, I'm not sure what the point is, but I hope you get at least some of what I'm trying to get across. Del Albright wrote an op/ed a couple years ago about using our resources wisely and avoiding burnout, I've been burned out a long time, but we gotta keep on doing it.

:nuke:

Like I said Jon, don't take it personal.

:rasta:

Originally posted by landuseorc
... I've been burned out a long time, but we gotta keep on doing it.


I think we all get burned out at one point or another. I know I've only been heavily involved for about three years now, and get a case of the burn outs every few months, but like you said we have to keep doing it....

I've kinda made it personal to do whatever I can to defeat Boxer's plan, and all the rest of he PC bullshit and gun control crap she spews. I'm in no way playing down the Roadless issue, and I will continue to help in anyway I can.... I guess I just see this boxer thing as a way for me to make a difference right in my own backyard.... might be kinda of selfish I guess, I don't know... but untill every single recreational enthusiest gets off their ass and does their part, the rest of us will have to keep choosing the battles we feel we can have the biggest impact on....


:usa:

Potomac Watch: A forest of obstacles lie in way of 'roadless rule'
Saturday, June 8, 2002

By CHARLES POPE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

WASHINGTON -- At a news conference this week brimming with fanfare and confident body language, Rep. Jay Inslee predicted that Congress would pass legislation banning logging and road building on 60 million acres of undeveloped national forest.

The bill, Inslee said, "delivers what the American people overwhelmingly want: bipartisan legislation that takes care of existing roads and protects the remaining jewels of our national forests from mining, drilling and clearcutting."

Putting the "roadless rule" into law has been a goal of environmental groups since the Clinton administration first proposed it eight years ago. Environmental advocates say it's even more important now that Republican George Bush is president.

Inslee had reason to be brash. His bill has 173 co-sponsors, including 18 Republicans. Among them are such prominent Republicans as Rep. Sherwood Boehlert of New York, chairman of the Science Committee, and Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, a champion of campaign finance reform.

Polls show that the idea of preserving pristine forests is supported by more than 70 percent of the public. And when the idea was subjected to public comment during the Clinton administration, 2 million people wrote in to support the roadless rule. An estimated 60,000 of those comments came from Washington state.

Inslee's also getting help in the Senate, where Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has introduced a similar bill.

But the good vibes are misleading. Few expect the bill to get very far in the House because it's missing a critical piece -- the support of Western Republicans.

And that support isn't likely to materialize. The news for Inslee gets even worse because the committees that would consider the bill are all chaired by conservative Western Republicans.

They wasted no time staking out their position.

More than 40 members of Congress, mostly Republican and mostly from the West, sent a letter to President Bush on Wednesday urging him to oppose the bill, which they said would cut off access to significant portions of national forests and increase the risk of catastrophic fire. The bill also would handcuff development efforts, opponents said.

Most of the 58.5 million acres set aside are in the West, although they spread from Alaska's Tongass National Forest to Florida's Apalachicola National Forest.

Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., chairman of the Forests and Forest Health Subcommittee of the House Resources Committee, called the roadless rule a "sham" and said the Clinton administration had ignored significant Western opposition when it implemented the rule just before Clinton left office.

"It is nothing short of astonishing that national environmental groups and certain elected officials in Washington, D.C., continue to push the rule in the face of a federal judge's injunction," McInnis said.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge in Boise, Idaho, blocked the rule from taking effect last year, calling the policy a "Band-Aid approach" toward forest conservation that could do irreparable harm.

A coalition of environmental groups has appealed Lodge's decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Bush administration declined to join the appeal, a decision that lawyers for the groups say hurt their cause and showed the administration's true position on the roadless rule.

The budding fight over the roadless rule illustrates once again the unusual contours of debate when the question is forests. Rather than deep partisan differences, the fight over trees is often driven more by regional differences, with Republican lawmakers from the West generally supporting more liberal uses of federal land for resource extraction while lawmakers from the East -- from both parties -- often support broader protections.

Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif. captured the political divide best during a forestry hearing in 1998.

The hearing was well under way when Farr crystallized Congress' difficult relationship with trees. Gazing across the crowded hearing room, he proclaimed: "There is 100 percent agreement in this room that we all love forests.

"The difficulty is that 50 percent of them love it vertical, and 50 percent of them love [forests] horizontal."

Farr is a co-sponsor of Inslee's bill, but if it has a chance to pass, the numbers in Farr's maxim must change. Fewer must like trees horizontal and more must want them vertical.

That's not likely to happen even though the public is squarely behind its national forests. The 155 national forests attract twice as many visitors as the more recognizable national parks. Visitors may travel on some of the 373,000 miles of road within forest boundaries, eight times as many miles as the federal interstate system.

Yet, balancing the recreational, conservation and economic values has confounded Congress since forests were first set aside in the 19th century.

© 1998-2002 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/73893_pot08.shtml

Forty-Five Members of Congress Urge President to Resist Efforts to Implement Clinton-Era Roadless Rule





DATE: June 6, 2002

BACKGROUND: U.S. House Western Caucus Member John Thune (R-SD), Caucus Chairman Richard Pombo and Scott McInnis, chairman of the Forests and Forest Health Subcommittee were joined, on June 5, 2002, by 42 other Representatives in signing a letter to President Bush urging him to resist efforts by environmental extremists to codify by legislation or executive action the Clinton-enacted Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

The rule, developed in secret by the Clinton Administration and the Heritage Forests Campaign, closed off 58 million acres of public land to road building, denying access to these huge expanses of our national heritage to nearly all Americans.

The Federal District Court in Idaho has placed an injunction on implementation of the rule because it was created illegally and the Bush Administration has set out to find alternatives to it.

TEN SECOND RESPONSE: "This hastily developed and legally flawed Clinton-era roadless area rule doesn't represent sound management decisions for our forests." -- Rep. Richard Pombo

TEN SECOND RESPONSE: "The Roadless Area Conservation Rule would cut off access to significant portions of our national forests, increase the risk of catastrophic fire, and further disturb the economy of numerous rural communities." -- Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA)

TEN SECOND RESPONSE: "It is nothing short of astounding that national environmental groups and certain elected officials in Washington, DC continue to push the rule in the face of a federal judge's injunction." -- Rep. Scott McInnes

TEN SECOND RESPONSE: "The last thing states like Idaho need is a one-size fits all roadless policy. The best public policy starts locally where every stakeholder has a voice and seat at the table." -- Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID)

TEN SECOND RESPONSE: "Given that the courts have already ruled that the current law on the books is 'grossly inadequate,' it is incumbent on this Congress and Administration to act soon to correct this poorly contrived policy." -- Rep. Dennis Rehberg (R-MT)




by Tom Randall, Director
John P. McGovern, MD Center for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs
The National Center for Public Policy Research

Contact the author at: 773-857-5086 or TRandall@nationalcenter.org
The National Center for Public Policy Research, Chicago office
3712 North Broadway - PMB 279
Chicago, IL 60613

If you would like to send a note of thanks to the Congress Members who have publically opposed the Roadless Area Conservation Act , here is a list of those from above that have email addresses:

jthune@mail.house.gov,
rpombo@mail.house.gov,
bill.thomas@mail.house.gov,
don.young@mail.house.gov,
jack.kingston@mail.house.gov,
publicca41@mail.house.gov,
mark.green@mail.house.gov,
greg.walden@mail.house.gov,
mike.simpson@mail.house.gov,
butch.otter@mail.house.gov,
congressman.cooksey@mail.house.gov,
mail.gibbons@mail.house.gov,
cannon.ut03@mail.house.gov,
bob.stump@mail.house.gov,
rep.schaffer@mail.house.gov,
john.peterson@mail.house.gov,
rep.sununu@mail.house.gov,
tom.tancredo@mail.house.gov,
congjones@mail.house.gov,
joe.skeen@mail.house.gov,
doolittle@mail.house.gov,
jdhayworth@mail.house.gov

The other members did not have direct email addresses. You can write them via form at www.congress.org .

McInnis protests roadless proposal

June 6, 2002

By Margo MacFarland
Herald Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON – Rep. Scott McInnis is protesting legislation introduced in the U.S. House on Wednesday that would enact into law Clinton administration regulations designating nearly 60 million acres of Forest Service land as roadless areas.

"You don’t just paintbrush several million miles of Western lands and say no roads," McInnis, R-Colo., said Wednesday. "You’ve got to manage your lands in custom fashion."

Approximately 600,000 acres of the San Juan National Forest, and approximately 4 million acres in Colorado would be affected by either the Clinton administration regulations or by the bill now in Congress. Oil and gas development, logging, some forms of recreation and roads are generally prohibited in areas designated as roadless.

Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., introduced the legislation Wednesday, and a group of more than 170 House members have signed on as co-sponsors; only 18 are Republicans.

That legislation would essentially do what the Clinton administration set out to do, but through a bill in Congress.

Currently, the Clinton regulations are tied up in a court case that centers around the question of whether the former administration followed proper procedures regarding the solicitation of public comment, among other issues, when devising them.

In response to Inslee’s
legislation, McInnis and about 40 other lawmakers sent a letter Wednesday to President George W. Bush expressing their opposition to the Inslee legislation.

"We are writing to express our strong opposition to any attempts at this time to codify or administratively implement the Roadless Area Conservation Rule," McInnis and the other lawmakers wrote. "We urge you to diligently seek out meaningful public input, particularly from the local citizens most directly affected by the process."

Inslee has been circulating a "Dear Colleague" letter seeking backing on the bill. In that letter, he argues that designating these national forest lands as roadless areas will protect them.

"By protecting these areas, we ensure that these pristine forests provide sources of public drinking water, undisturbed habitats for fish and wildlife," Inslee states in the letter.

He contends that his legislation would not constitute a complete ban on road building or economic use, but would permit road building for fire fighting, would permit some logging to reduce the risk of wildfires and allow for some existing oil and gas operations.

But McInnis does not believe this represents a land management plan that will work for his state and its residents.

"Mr. Inslee does not have the concerns of Colorado in mind," he said Wednesday.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is expected to issue companion legislation in the Senate sometime in the next month, her press secretary, Matt McCarthy, said Wednesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
© 2002, the Durango Herald.

http://www.durangoherald.com/asp-bin/article_generation.asp?article_type=news&article_path=/news/news020606_3.htm

Forest plan almost doubles wilderness

June 6, 2002

By Robert Weller
Associated Press Writer

DENVER – A new management plan for the White River National Forest, the belle of the national forest system, would substantially increase the area set aside as potential wilderness.

Groups representing all-terrain vehicle users said a draft proposed by the Clinton administration in 1999 would have closed too many roads, and some local officials complained too much land would be set aside as wilderness.

The draft plan also was condemned by Vail Resorts for seeking to freeze ski development. The latest plan seeks to focus any additional ski development at existing resorts in the nation’s No. 1 ski state.

Although the plan released Tuesday dropped controversial language about controlling streamflows, much of the heart of the draft plan remained intact.

The draft plan recommended 47,000 acres of additional wilderness, roadless land where no mechanized transport is allowed. The final plan proposes 82,000 acres.

"What has happened is that each time the Forest Service writes a plan there is less opportunity for motorized access," said John Martin, president of the Colorado Off Highway Vehicle Coalition. "Prior to today, 42 percent of the forest was available. This reduces that to 32 percent. Two of the areas that they are proposing as wilderness had timber cuts 21 years or so ago so they must have had roads in them.

"Recreation is really popular in Colorado," Martin said. "That is why a lot of people live here. They don’t live in western Colorado for the arts."

Use of snowmobiles, permitted on 51 percent of the forest by the 1984 plan, would be limited to 38 percent.

"We are not trying to cut them out. We want them to come here. There are well over a thousand miles of roads available," said Wendy Haskins, who worked on the travel portion of the Forest Service plan.

Forest Supervisor Martha Ketelle said any increase in recreational opportunities had to be balanced with efforts to protect the ecosystem.

"Clearly there were people who were concerned there might be too much emphasis on habitat at the expense of human use," she said. "So Alternative K (the new plan) was created to addressed the desire for increased recreation opportunity."

Ketelle said the language on preserving streamflows in the draft plan was changed because some interpreted it to mean the Forest Service was trying to take control of water resources.

She said the water resource and fishery can be protected by working with other agencies and water users, and relying on existing laws. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, for example, can require minimum streamflows to protect endangered fish.

Melinda Kassen of Trout Unlimited said the Forest Service should be working to improve degraded streams, not relying on other agencies to force them to do their jobs. She said the Forest Service has long-established rights to preserve stream flows.

"The White River has some spectacular resources. This plan doesn’t preclude development that would degrade those resources. And it doesn’t require restoration of the resources that are already degraded. We could end up with fewer valuable fishery resources," Kassen said.

U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., who had pushed for elimination of the streamflow language, said the new language was too vague for comfort.

"Needless to say, we’ll be watching very closely to make sure that the Forest Service’s lack of clarity on this score isn’t a reversal of its commitment not to impose bypass flows," he said.

Bypass flows are used to keep stream and rivers flowing through forest land to protect aquatic life and habitat. McInnis and Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., oppose the use of bypass flows, saying they constitute a government taking of water rights.

Kassen said, "The plan is not a total disaster." She said the draft plan did not include any recovery strategy for protecting cutthroat trout and the final plan does. The draft plan also did not designate any aquatic species as indicators of how streams are doing. The final plan lists several.

http://durangoherald.com/asp-bin/article_generation.asp?article_type=out&article_path=/outdoors/out020606_4.htm

© 2002, the Durango Herald.

When Babbit and President Clinton announced the original Roadless Rule everyone said it was "too extreme" to be enacted.

The media even reported the 60 million acres to be limited, due to existing patents and leases, down to 30-40 million acres. The environmental extremists called for a full press effort, for the 60 million acres, while at the same time authored articles that the fight was for "critical habitat" of 16-30 million acres (what they would "compromise" to accept).

Laugh, tell me Boxer's plans and this Roadless Bill are too extreme for the general public to acknowledge and accept, but remember if Gore became President the land would already be closed to motorized recreation by administrative rule. We would have never been given the chance to effectively pose a legal challenge to the rule before implementation (lawsuits would still be filed, but we would be living without motorized public access to these lands, and Gore would have demanded the full power of the Attorney General's office to oppose our lawsuits).

You say these plans are too extreme? You say the public will wake up and revolt (when they learn the impact)?

The public didn't wake up when we lost access to the land two years ago, and they didn't counter the Sierra Club's door to door promotion of the Rule (passing out the stamped and addressed cards that make up the majority of the "support" comments).

Brad, what has changed your thinking? What makes you believe the general public apathy, about the public learning the truth about land closure vs. legitimate habitat protection has changed? Tell me if you don't think the media will fall in line with false presentations of the Roadless bill protections and impacts (think about the pretty pictures of elk in ANWAR, tens of miles from the proposed production area)? Have your opponents changed?

These land grabs may seem too extreme, but where will the media allow the true facts about recreation impacts be reported? Where will the general public learn of the true restrictions, until it's too late? Who are we going to find, that will fund a factual 60 second commercial revealing the true impact and agenda of the wildlands project, to air during game four of the 2002 World Series (a time slot with equal exposure to the major news media presentations)?

My fear is the public will not learn until they are turned away from the fence around the nature conservancy wildlands project preserve. The land will be closed by an act of congress, too late for anything but another act of congress to open it back up (at a "compromised" acreage).

Maybe you think extreme closure is what is required to "wake up" the general public? Prohibition and the Volstead Act should be a lesson. It will take a decade or more for congress to recognize civil disobedience as a bellwether and repeal Prohibition, and likely longer for the combined wildlands land confiscation acts (and people like me would likely end up being raided and in jail for practicing "social motorized recreation" on public lands.") This is an effective wake up method, but the consequences are hard to agree to.

The motorized recreation community has made great progress in the past five years (since GSENM) to communicate and oppose unreasonable land closures on a national level. This national OHV community organization strength was not available to the public in 1984 or 1992, during California's past wilderness land grabs, and we should not ignore it's influence even if Boxer's plan is viewed as a "local extreme" topic.

If I can communicate one point, it is that we need to gather and employ all the allied help we can gain, on every issue, to oppose recreation area closures (land, sea, and home threats). The fear that repeated requests for help will result in apathy and distraction to the "real threats" is unfounded. The only true fear is if the public believes the few "real threats" are the only threats, and we allow compromise and small freedoms to be lost due to ignorance.

Happy Trails!

Posted on Mon, Jun. 24, 2002

Commentary by BONNER R. COHEN
The Other Perspective

With the long, hot summer just getting under way, millions of Americans are bracing themselves for the inevitable onslaught of deadly forest fires that have become an annual occurrence in many parts of the country.

Television news coverage of the inferno raging in the Denver area are a daily remainder that the ordeal has already begun.

"This is a potential tragedy of epic proportions, and the fire season isn't even upon us," Colorado Gov. Bill Owens grimly remarked, as wildfires raged out of control near Denver earlier this month.

Prolonged drought in the West, coupled with poor management of America's national forests, has created ideal conditions for catastrophic forest fires to reap their tragic toll.

Yet right in the midst of this looming disaster, a group of Capitol Hill lawmakers has hit upon an idea that is bound to make a bad situation even worse.

Led by Reps. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., and Jay Inslee, D-Wash., and backed by environmental groups, they are pushing legislation that would put into law a Clinton administration rule barring road construction and logging, as well as most forms of forest management on 58.5 million acres of national forest land in 39 states.

Known as the "Roadless Area Conservation Rule," the rule was blocked from going into effect last year by a federal judge who called it fundamentally flawed and who described the rule-making process as grossly inadequate.

By resurrecting the roadless rule in the name of protecting America's national forests, Boehlert, Inslee and their allies are, in fact, writing a prescription for even more disastrous wildfires.

These conflagrations devastate millions of acres of forestland, destroy homes, businesses and wildlife, and kill firefighters and others caught in their path. They are largely a result of decades of mismanagement by the U.S. Forest Service.

Ill-conceived efforts to prevent all forest fires, including naturally occurring wildfires that have traditionally cleansed the forest floor of excess vegetation, have allowed a combustible under-story to grow and spread.

Even though the federal government owns "just" 33 percent of the nation's forests, fully 66 percent of the acreage lost to forest fires since 1997 has been on federal land, according to the Department of Agriculture and the National Interagency Fire Center.

Even worse, the Forest Service determined in a November 2000 report that about half of the 58.5 million acres of newly designated roadless area in the lower 48 states consists of forests in a moderate to advanced state of ill health and ecological deterioration.

These lands are prime candidates for catastrophic blazes unless proper forest-management techniques aimed at correcting the mistakes of the past are applied.

As circumstances warrant, this could include the removal of dead and diseased trees, as well as the construction of roads providing access to firefighters to extinguish out-of-control blazes.

The Forest Service has finally recognized the harm done by decades of misguided fire-suppression policies. The last thing it needs is to have another 58.5 million acres off-limits to the corrective measures it is finally undertaking.


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BONNER R. COHEN is a senior fellow at The Lexington Institute, a nonprofit public-policy research organization in Arlington, Va.

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