[MCN] Language of Logging Rider Leaked, Clearcuts for Christmas Still On the Table – We Still Need Calls!

[Matthew Koehler]

Here's an Action Alert from the Swan View Coalition:
http://www.swanview.org/articles/whats-new/stop_destructive_logging_riders_today/222


Below is an update from the John Muir Project, which includes another
call-to-action, as well as the LEAKED language of the actual public lands
logging rider.


Remember, last month, the Montana Wilderness Association, The Wilderness
Society, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Yaak Valley Forest Council and
others wrote this oped (http://bit.ly/1mfgKmn) in which they claimed that
Rep Zinke’s Resilient Federal Forest Act (HR 2647), which is also supported
by Sen Daines and is *the basis of this latest logging rider, “undermines
bedrock conservation laws and limits opportunities for the public to have a
say in the future of its forests.”*


However, now that a potential rider deal has been struck behind closed door
to include Zinke’s logging bill with a Wildfire funding bill that the
Montana Wilderness Association and the other groups support, these groups
have retreated and gone silent.


In fact, they are failing to even alert their members and supporters what's
going on, much less call on them to take immediate action to help stop yet
another year-end, omnibus rider package that undermines our nation’s
bedrock conservation laws and undermines public input all to allow more
logging of our National Forests.


Language of Logging Rider Leaked, Clearcuts for Christmas Still On the
Table – We Still Need Calls!

BY John Muir Project

SOURCE:
http://johnmuirproject.org/2015/12/language-of-logging-rider-leaked-clearcuts-for-christmas-still-on-the-table-we-still-need-calls/

Wow, is all we can say!  The language in this
WildfireFundingFix_and_LoggingRider2015
<http://johnmuirproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/WildfireFundingFix_and_LoggingRider2015.pdf>
is
simply a giveaway to the federal timber sales program and logging interests
nationwide.  This “Clearcuts for Christmas” Logging Rider is not good for
the taxpayers, it isn’t good for forest ecosystems, it won’t protect
communities from future fire and it would permit the destruction of
millions of acres of forest habitat nationwide without benefit of
environmental analysis and impacts disclosure requirements of the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) – the Nation’s decades-old charter for
environmental protection.

Further, experts are already indicating that the fire-funding language in
the rider may not even “fix” the fire-borrowing issue.  It would just lead
to increased spending on ill-advised backcountry fire suppression.

Superficially warm and fuzzy, yet completely unenforceable, sideboards
litter the language of this Rider, attempting to dupe the less informed,
but don’t be taken in!  When the Rider categorically excludes (CE) 3,000
acre logging projects (an area covering 5 square miles) from NEPA, it means
that these projects can proceed without preparation of environmental
analysis to determine whether the project may potentially have a
significant effect on the environment. The sideboard which requires the
establishment of a collaborative group is meaningless – these groups are
dominated by Forest Service and private logging interests and they
establish a voting procedure that ensures that their logging projects are
implemented
<http://johnmuirproject.org/forest-watch/post-fire-habitat/sierra-national-forest/>,
even over the objections of other participants (namely the environmental
organizations).  *Consensus is not required*, which means that any concerns
that might impact the board feet of timber to be extracted from the forest
under the guise of restoration will be swept under the rug. While *best
available science* must be considered, it is not required to be followed
and again, will be ignored if it impacts timber targets.  Because these
projects have been excluded from the standard rigors of NEPA, these groups
operate behind closed doors and the public barely even knows what is
happening (notice is required, but that is all – comments do not need to be
read, incorporated or responded to) until they drive into their national
forest and see the logging.

The Rider also contains an exemption from full compliance with the
Endangered Species Act (Sec. 3002) that you could drive a truck through –
allowing the Department of Interior to use “whatever guidance” it wants,
rather than following the best available science when making decisions
related to threatened or endangered species in the context of logging under
the wildly deceptive guise of “watershed protection”. As if logging in a
watershed has ever done anything except damage habitat and generate chronic
sedimentation for years.
Other gifts to logging interests include the 250 acre CE ostensibly to
create “early seral” forest conditions – a euphemism for clearcuts – that
is a swath of forest which is completely removed from the landscape.
Again,no environmental analysis or public disclosure is required but the
250 acre clearcut must be split into at least two projects (no size
restriction other than 250 acres total) which means that you might see a
clearcut the size of over 200 football fields in the middle of your
favorite hiking spot!  The really crazy thing about this CE is that
wildland fire in mature forests naturally creates patches of *complex* *early
seral forest*
<http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewild/fire/fire-part-2.html>, which is
the rarest and most biodiverse habitat type on the landscape – and yet
every aspect of this Rider is meant to demonize, defeat and eradicate
the beneficial
effects of fire in our forest ecosystems
<http://johnmuirproject.org/forest-watch/post-fire-habitat/>.

              Oh, and there are also unenforceable suggestions that old
growth and large trees be retained in certain circumstances, but this is
completely bound by subjective agency interpretation – agencies such as the
Forest Service which are being funded to perform these projects and which
keep the excess money generated from selling our trees to logging interests
in order to enhance their budgets.  The more they log, the more money they
get – not an incentive for restraint.  Following the Forest and Land
Management Plans is also in there; unfortunately these Plans are extremely
weak and have few if any enforceable provisions, and they generally allow
clearcutting.  Contrary to timber industry assertions that only a small
portion of public forests would be affected, the logging provisions are so
broad that they can be applied to all national forest lands within 100
miles of a town.

Make no mistake, this rider is about gutting environmental laws to allow a
massive increase in destructive logging on federal public lands, as well as
encouraging run-away spending on backcountry fire suppression, which would
only harm fire-adapted forests and would do nothing to protect homes.  All
while us taxpayers are on the hook for the costs.
      We still have time – *Please make more calls today*.  *Insist that
your Senator oppose any Omnibus spending bill that contains these
provisions!  You can Reach your Senator Here.
<http://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/>*         Also, depending on your
Party affiliation please call either the *Democratic and/or Republican
Leaders* in the House and Senate and tell them these provisions are bad for
taxpayers, bad for the environment, and are not going to fix anything!



*       Democrats:*  *House*: Nancy Pelosi  202-225-4965  and *Senate:*  Harry
Reid  202-456-6213

Talking points: the environmental harm from logging without environmental
analysis, the fact that these provisions will not protect communities from
fire, the huge increase in costs to taxpayers to suppress natural
beneficial wildland fires and destroy habitat through logging.



*         Republicans:*  *House:*  Paul Ryan  202-225-3031  and
*Senate:*  Mitch
McConnell  202-224-2541

stress the enormous giveaway of federal dollars for activities with no
benefit for protecting communities from fire; that the provisions are
fiscally irresponsible and amount to federal welfare for executive branch
agencies, the fire fighting and logging industries and that it is
Un-American to negotiate these deals behind closed doors
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