Cutting roads and trees

While most Americans are preoccupied with holiday activities, the Bush administration's Forest Service has launched attacks on forest conservation in four states, in yet another attempt to remove protections from the nation's forests.

While most Americans are preoccupied with holiday activities, the Bush administration's Forest Service has launched attacks on forest conservation in four states, in yet another attempt to remove protections from the nation's forests.

Before Mr. Bush took office, a Forest Service chief proposed new rules to prohibit the agency from building or approving new road construction in roadless areas of national forests covering 5,000 or more acres, a policy that protects more than 58 million acres.
 
The Bush administration tried weakening the rule, and in 2005 tossed it out, requiring governors to petition if they wanted to protect national forests within their states. Four states sued and last year a victory in federal court reinstated the roadless rule across America. But the agency has sparked new problems in Idaho, Colorado, Alaska and California.

In Idaho, a new Forest Service draft environmental impact statement puts at risk the state's 9.3 million acres of forests, the largest intact forest system in the lower 48. A loophole opens two-thirds of the forest to road construction and increased timber harvest. In Colorado, new Forest Service rules would allow new coal mines, oil and gas drilling and ski area expansions, leaving now-pristine forests with fewer protections.

In Alaska, the Forest Service plans to re-open the Tongass National Forest in Alaska's panhandle to large-scale timber logging, allowing 33 miles of road and a new log transfer facility to be built in North America's largest rain forest. In California, the Forest Service has angered Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by not honoring agreements it made earlier and planning to build new roads in four southern California forests.

National forests - including the Apalachicola, Osceola and Ocala forests on 1.2 million acres in north and central Florida - are national treasures. It's not too late for the Bush administration to stop seeking ways to exploit them and, instead, protect them.