December 13th, 2006

Forest Service: no more environmental analysis of forest plans

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - Long-term management plans for national forests will no longer go through a formal environmental impact statement, the U.S. Forest Service announced Tuesday.

Based on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and a new approach to forest planning, the Forest Service concluded that writing the plans has no effect on the environment, and any projects envisioned by them will still have to go through a formal analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act, said Fred Norbury, associate deputy chief for the national forest system.

"Our thinking was if a plan doesn't cause anything to happen, and it doesn't prohibit anything from happening, it really doesn't have any environmental effects," Norbury said from Washington, D.C.

Conservation groups complained that applying what is called a categorical exclusion to forest plans, the Bush administration was continuing long-term efforts to undercut the National Environmental Policy Act, known as NEPA, which requires agencies to take a hard look at environmental impacts of their projects and include the public in the decisions.

"NEPA is the primary law that enshrines democracy and openness in decisions," Marty Hayden, legislative director for Earthjustice, said from Washington, D.C. "It is also the law that requires the government to take a hard look at the cumulative impacts of their actions on the forest and their plans for the forest going forward.

"The other thing that this ignores is that forest plans make real decisions. Forest plans zone the forests -- what areas are open to or closed to logging, what areas are open to offroad vehicle use, what areas are open to back country recreation, and lots of other issues."

But Norbury said the provisions of the new Forest Service rule actually increased public participation and provided for more accurate information on cumulative impacts, though it would shorten the time to produce a plan to about three years.

Rep. Nick J. Rahall, D-W.Va., who will become the House Resources Committee chairman in the next Congress, said the new rules are part of a continuing effort by the Bush administration to reduce wildlife and watershed protections and make it harder for the public to challenge illegal logging.

NEPA has been a powerful law for conservation groups challenging Bush administration forest policy. A recent federal court ruling that overturned changes to rules banning most logging in inventoried roadless areas cited the lack of environmental impact statement as required by NEPA.

Haden said a court challenge of the new forest planning rules was likely.

Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, said the new rule was overdue and likely to be challenged in court by conservationists, as the forest planning regulations issued in 2005 already are.

"NEPA public involvement and detailed analysis needs to be done at the project level where the true consequences to the environment can be assessed," West said. "Wasting time and money, especially court time, on a broad general plan is not in the public interest."

National forests have been preparing 15-year management plans since the 1970s, said Norbury. They once were a list of 15 years' worth of projects, and an environmental impact statement analyzing them.

The Forest Service realized that many of those projects were never done because of changing priorities, and the environmental impact statements were often out of date due to fires, insect infestations and new scientific information, he added.

In 2005, the Bush administration changed the rules, making forest plans more broad-based, focusing on how to improve forest health and restore forests burned by wildfire, rather than individual projects, Norbury said.

About nine of the 125 national forests and national grasslands embark on a new plan every year, and about nine finish them, he said. Plans typically take five to seven years and cost $5 million to $7 million dollars, much of it spent on the environmental impact statement.

The new policy still comes under NEPA, Norbury said. Instead of an environmental impact statement or the lesser environmental analysis, the plans are now covered by a categorical exclusion, a provision of NEPA that says there are no adverse environmental impacts, so no analysis has to be done.


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