The Oregon Sierra Club says it won’t support Senator Wyden’s logging bill for Eastern Oregon.
The group had been withholding judgement ever since the deal was announced almost two months ago. But now, the group’s Conservation Director Ivan Maluski tells me that without some changes, the Sierra Club will oppose the measure.
His critique of the logging bill is, in many ways, similar to concerns raised by the Obama Adminstration.
Here’s what Maluski says is wrong with Wyden’s bill.
It doesn’t increase protection for old growth forests.
Maluski says that many of the protections in the bill are already enforced through regulations. While putting them into law is a good idea, Maluski says there’s nothing new here for old growth.
The bill doesn’t allow administrative appeals of Forest Service logging decisions for several years.
A bad idea, says Maluski. He says the Sierra Club has made good use of administrative appeals. He thinks they’re a way to get the attention of the Forest Service when the agency makes a bad call. Maluski estimates the group has protected about 50,000 acres of forests this way during the past few years. He adds the appeals process avoids court fights. Take away that option and Maluski says will be more likely to go court.
That’s pretty much what Agriculture Undersecretary Harris Sherman says, too. In his testimony Wednesday before the Senate Sherman told the subcommittee, “An administrative review process serves as an important and useful process for resolving issues and averting litigation. With no established administrative method to review decisions and areas of disagreement, we could see more litigation during the interim period as a result of having no administrative review process.”
Maluski also doesn’t like the mandated levels for logging during the first three years of the bill. In year one, the Forest Service would have to log 80,000 acres of Eastside forests – more than double current levels. That would grow to 120,000 acres in year three.
He says the mandates ties the hands of the Forest Service, threatens forest restoration and increases pressure for more road building.
Again, Undersecretary Sherman raised similar concerns. He says the mandates may give Eastern Oregon residents, and the timber industry, “unrealistic expectations” about how much logging the Forest Service can handle.
For more information on the Sierra Club’s position see this post on their blog.
Sierra Club Weighs in on Senator Wyden’s Eastside Legislation
