The New York Times

www.nytimes.com

By DOUGLAS JEHL

January 10, 2001

A new policy banning the cutting of old- growth trees in the national forests would affect no more than 20 percent of the timber harvest scheduled for auction across the country in the coming year, Forest Service officials said today.

The officials made the estimate a day after the agency's chief, Mike Dombeck, issued the policy. In the Pacific Northwest, where the harvesting of old trees has been most controversial, the affected harvest could be as high as 50 percent, the officials said.

The overall estimate was at odds with one reported in The New York Times on Tuesday based on estimates provided by Clinton administration officials, who said the ban would affect 50 percent of the planned national harvest. The officials said today that the larger estimate had been misunderstood and applied only to the Pacific Northwest.

The new policy caught forest managers by surprise. In an internal memorandum today, Mr. Dombeck sought to address internal criticism by emphasizing that details of his plan had not yet been drafted and that final decisions about harvests would still be made by local managers, although they would have to take his directive into account.

Until recently, the prevailing rule within the Forest Service has been that the biggest and oldest trees should be cut first, and Mr. Dombeck's directive that old-growth trees, prized for their commercial value, should be protected represents a major step in what had been an incremental reversal.

In 1989, Dale Robertson, who was then the Forest Service chief, issued a policy statement calling for the protection of old-growth values within public lands. But Mr. Dombeck's directive went well beyond that earlier directive.

The Republican staff director of the Senate panel overseeing the Forest Service said today that hearings would be held on the new policy, which seems to run counter to the one signaled by President-elect George W. Bush.

"What Dombeck is proposing affects a policy that has been incorporated in a Forest Service manual, and changes to that require a public process," said Mark Ray, staff director of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee on forests and public land management.

In his memorandum, Mr. Dombeck said he recognized that his new policy would "be subject to review by the incoming secretary of agriculture and the new administration."

Ann M. Veneman, the agriculture secretary-designate, would oversee the Forest Service in the Bush administration if her nomination was confirmed by the Senate.

"I realize that some of you would have preferred that I delay talking about old growth," Mr. Dombeck said in the memorandum. "During the last four years we have highlighted many and often difficult policy issues. The old-growth issue has been with the Forest Service for many years. It is our responsibility to highlight it and attempt to bring to resolution the issue in a professional, transparent and forthright manner."

As the Forest Service chief, Mr. Dombeck, a career government employee, holds what has traditionally been a nonpolitical post.

Because of his senior rank within the civil service, Mr. Dombeck cannot be dismissed until 120 days after Mr. Bush takes office. He has said he would like to stay in office as long as he can serve usefully, but people who have watched the transition process say it is likely that he will be replaced.

Among his main critics have been timber companies who have described his policies as a barrier to their commercial interests, and those same companies are among the critics most eager to see him replaced.

"Dombeck is finished," said Frank Carroll, a former Forest Service official who is now the chief spokesman for the Potlatch Corporation, a timber concern based in Spokane, Wash. "His time is over; he's done."