The New York Times
www.nytimes.com
Nearing a Forest Legacy
January 8, 2001
President Clinton is moving briskly in his final
weeks to add to his already admirable record as an environmentalist. On Friday
came what may be his biggest conservation achievement, an order putting nearly
one-third of the nation's forest land permanently off limits to road-building
and logging.
The plan has provoked angry criticism from the
timber, oil and gas interests and their reliable allies in Congress and the
Western statehouses — the same people who have challenged most of Mr. Clinton's
wilderness initiatives over the last eight years. These interests have
regularly been on the losing end, and for all their bluster, they must still navigate
a formidable coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans on this and every
other environmental issue. But because these same interests will soon have a
friend in the White House, the environmentalists must gird for prolonged
battle.
Under Mr. Clinton's plan, which was revealed in
broad outline in November, 58.5 million acres of the national forests would be
protected from new road-building and commercial logging — including 9.3 million
acres of Alaska's Tongass National Forest, much prized by environmentalists for
its old- growth trees. The big difference between the earlier plan and the
final version concerns the Tongass, which is also coveted by loggers.
The original plan would have shut down new
road-building in all other national forests in two months, but would have
allowed new roads to be built in the Tongass until 2004. Alaska's Congressional
delegation argued that a delay was needed to give southeast Alaska's economy
time to adjust to lower levels of logging. Environmentalists argued that delay
would encourage furious road-building and compromise the biological integrity
of the forest. On this crucial point, Mr. Clinton sided with the
environmentalists.
The plan cannot become law for 60 days. This gives
its opponents a window of opportunity. President-elect George W. Bush has
complained that the new rules were devised without adequate consultation with
the American people. This will be a hard case to make in Congress and the
courts. The administration appears to have gone strictly by the book, holding a
year of public hearings and taking 1.5 million written comments. Opponents will
also argue that the rule will cripple the timber, oil and gas companies. That
will be an even harder case to make. The designated roadless areas contain less
than one-quarter of 1 percent of the nation's timber, and a tinier fraction of
its oil and gas reserves.
The forest plan could have implications for another
important conservation decision — also involving Alaska — confronting the
president. That is whether to issue a last-minute order declaring the coastal
plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a national monument. Mr. Bush has
said that he wants to open the plain to oil drilling. Environmentalists argue
that by giving the area monument status, Mr. Clinton would also be giving it an
extra layer of protection.
But some senior officials are unconvinced that
monument designation is necessary or tactically sound. For one thing, it would
not enhance the legal protection the refuge already has. Under a 1980 law, drilling
cannot occur in the refuge without explicit Congressional approval. But just as
Congress can choose to open the refuge to drilling, so too can it overturn a
monument designation.
Moreover, even though there is substantial
opposition to drilling in the refuge among moderate Republicans, a last-minute
designation could persuade Republican leaders to insist on party discipline to
rebuke an outgoing president for a perceived attempt to tie the hands of an
incoming president. No less a friend of the refuge than Interior Secretary
Bruce Babbitt, who once said that drilling in the refuge would be as grave an
insult to nature as building hydroelectric dams in the Grand Canyon, worries
that monument designation at this stage could invite a backlash against other
vital elements of Mr. Clinton's conservation strategy — including the new
forest plan.
This page opposed drilling in the refuge when Mr.
Bush's father proposed it in 1989. It would destroy a pristine area that
nurtures a breathtaking variety of wildlife while yielding only six months'
worth of economically recoverable oil. But for tactical reasons, Mr. Clinton
may be justified in not pushing for monument status, however attractive as a
matter of principle. In any case, Americans are simply not going to endorse a
plan that spoils the refuge to obtain a trivial amount of oil.
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