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Not
wanting to trust the nation’s roadless forests to the Bush-appointed
secretary of agriculture, two U.S. legislators have re-introduced
companion bills in the House and the Senate that will write the
protections of the original Roadless Area Conservation Rule into
federal law.
The
bill was first introduced in 2003 in the Senate by Maria Cantwell
(D-WA) and in the House by Jay Inslee (D-WA).
Responding to the Bush administration’s repeal of the Roadless
Area Conservation Rule on May 5, 2005, Representatives Inslee and
Sherwood Boehlert (R- NY) re-introduced The
National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act (H.R. 3563) on
July 28. The bill has 149 bipartisan co-sponsors so far.
Then
on Mar. 2, 2006, a companion bill,
S.
2364, was re-introduced in the Senate by Sen. Maria Cantwell
(D-WA). Ten of her Senate colleagues joined the bill as co-sponsors.
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Bell
Mountain Inventoried Roadless Area, Eldorado National Forest. Photo
courtesy USDA Forest Service. |
The Roadless Area Conservation Act would provide permanent protection
for roadless areas in the national forests. The act would supersede
both the original roadless rule and the U.S. Forest Service’s
recent regulation that overturned it.
The original Roadless Area Conservation Rule was written during
the Clinton administration and went into effect in January 2001.
The roadless rule protected 58.5 million roadless acres of national
forest from roadbuilding, logging, drilling, mining, and other development.
It was the most popular environmental rule ever written, with more
than 4.2 million public comments over all comment periods. The overwhelming
majority of comments– 97.9 percent– were favorable to
the original, protective rule.
On May 5, 2005, the Bush administration revoked the popular rule
and replaced it with a complicated bureaucratic process that forces
governors to petition the Forest Service if they want to protect
the roadless areas in their state. The rule leaves the final decision
on all roadless areas up to the secretary of agriculture, who can
accept or reject the petitions.
There are many good reasons to preserve the roadless areas in our
national forests. Roadless lands preserve essential watersheds and
help ensure an abundant supply of clean drinking water. By keeping
large areas of forest undisturbed, we can provide refuges for endangered
wildlife and avoid fragmenting habitat. Undisturbed lands are an
effective barrier to invasive species– a growing problem nationwide.
And roadless areas provide a wide array of recreational opportunities.
We don’t need more roads in our national forests. There are
already 386,000 miles of them– enough to encircle the globe
15 times. The Forest Service already has a road maintenance backlog
of more than $10 billion dollars– at a time when its annual
budget is more likely to be cut than expanded.
“Punching
roads through America’s last remaining untouched forests to
subsidize short-term logging, mining, and energy development projects
is unfair to future generations,” said Sen. Cantwell in a
press
release announcing her bill’s re-introduction.
“Americans
don’t want to see their hunting, fishing, and hiking areas
turned into a reckless patchwork of road-building, logging, and
mining.”
A law enacted by Congress would ensure that roadless protections
are not subject to the whims of a hostile executive branch. It would
provide protection for the last unroaded forests in the country–
permanently.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
The Roadless Area Conservation Act now in Congress is the best way
to preserve roadless areas in our national forests. Ask your congressional
representatives to support Inslee and Boehlert’s National
Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act (H.R. 3563) in the House.
If they have already promised their support, thank them for helping
to protect our roadless forests.
Call your representative through the Congressional Switchboard,
202/224-3121, and ask him or her to support the Roadless Area Conservation
Act today.
You can find your representative’s contact information at:
http://thomas.loc.gov/
In
the Senate, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is already a co-sponsor of
the Roadless Area Conservation Act (S. 2364). Please contact Sen.
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and urge her to support the measure as well.
Sen. Feinstein can be reached at:
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-3841
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