Bush to Seek Wider Power on Forest-Thinning Plan

WASHINGTON —  In an effort to expedite the thinning of forests to prevent fires, President Bush plans to ask Congress today for broader authority to allow timber harvesters to use the trees and other wood products they remove for commercial gain.

The so-called stewardship contracts are part of a plan to hasten selective cutting of national forests. While visiting Oregon today, Bush is expected to make an official announcement of the proposal, which was first reported in The Times on Wednesday and later outlined in documents released by the White House.

“It’s clear that we need private-sector assistance; we can’t do all of the thinning that has to be done just at taxpayer expense,” said a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The plan is aimed at alleviating the catastrophic forest fires that have plagued the West in recent years. Already, more than 5.9 million acres of public and private land have burned this year, more than twice the annual average.

However, conservationists criticized the plan as an effort to increase access to public forests by timber companies and reduce the ability of citizens, environmental groups and Forest Service employees to stop timber harvests that threaten endangered species and other environmental values.

“It is designed to put the timber industry back in the driver’s seat, and that is not what is needed if we’re going to reduce the risk of fire,” said Jay Watson, California representative of the Wilderness Society, a national environmental organization.

Environmentalists said that if the administration was sincerely interested in reducing fires, it would ask Congress for more money to thin underbrush and small trees, which fuel the fires, rather than make it easier for timber companies to remove the larger, fire-resistant trees.

The outline of the plan was released late Wednesday. Officials said they wanted to leave the details of the proposal for the president to announce, so some parts remained murky.

For instance, it calls for abolishing a so-called rider that “imposed extraordinary procedural requirements on Forest Service appeals.”

Nathaniel Lawrence, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s forestry program, said this was clearly an oblique reference to Congress’ effort to save the appeals process after President George Bush’s administration canceled it in 1992. The congressional measure protecting the appeals process was attached to the Interior Department appropriation bill for fiscal 1993.

The appeals process authorizes citizens, environmental groups and Forest Service employees to challenge timber sales administratively and in court if they believe that the sales mismanage the public’s forests by threatening an endangered species or otherwise abusing natural resources.

It was “impossible” to tell from the documents released whether the Bush administration intends to try to eliminate the appeals process or reduce its scope, Lawrence said.

The administration official, whom the White House provided to explain the proposal, said the changes would be consistent with a measure passed last month concerning the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota, which excluded fuel treatment projects from public comment and judicial review and appeals. That measure reflected a consensus agreement approved by environmental groups as well as timber companies.

“They’re essentially proposing a rollback of environmental laws,” said Simeon Herskovits, senior staff attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center.

The senior administration official also said that the stewardship contracts, which have already been tried in some areas, could become “very widespread.”

“We have a huge area that needs to be thinned,” the official said.

These contracts would allow timber firms or other organizations to keep any profits they earn from the trees and other wood products they remove from forests to diminish the threat of fire.

Administration officials refused to say how the plan would change the Sierra Nevada framework, a plan to manage the vast mountain chain. However, the proposal does call for removing “needless administrative obstacles” to timber projects on the Northwest Forest Plan, which guides forest management in western Washington, western Oregon and northern California.

Both conservationists and the Bush administration attribute the catastrophic fires of recent years to a variety of Forest Service policies, including the practice of extinguishing low-intensity fires. The policy, pursued since the 1920s, resulted in much denser forests and a buildup of smaller trees and brush. In the meantime, timber companies harvested the largest, most fire-resistant trees.

These were perfect conditions for high-intensity fires that can destroy ecosystems.

The conservationists say they do not trust the Forest Service to save enough of the big trees when they grant logging permits.

“No one believes that is what is really going to happen,” said Keith Hammond, spokesman for the California Wilderness Coalition. “We will see contracts written to remove as many big trees as possible, and as little of the small junk brush as possible. Timber companies are not in it for fuel reduction and public-safety goals. It’s an inherently perverse incentive.”

Conservationists want the Forest Service to cut only small trees and brush, particularly from areas of forests closest to communities.

Times staff writer Bettina Boxall in Los Angeles contributed to this report.