Fundamental Environmental Protections Jeopardized Under Mark Rey's Leadership

Fundamental Environmental Protections Jeopardized Under Mark Rey's Leadership

by Lisa Dix
American Lands Campaign 11-9-01

    On November 7, 2001, Mark Rey, Undersecretary for the Environment and Natural Resources for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, testified in front of the House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health. Rey, former timber industry lobbyist, provided the Subcommittee with many insights on the way he will use his timber industry connections and the powerful backing by his former bosses Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) and Senator Frank Murkowski (R-AK) to advance a pro-resource extraction agenda in his reign as political boss of the U.S. Forest Service over the next years.

Chipping Away at Fundamental Laws

    Rey made it clear that this Administration will chip away at and try to overturn fundamental environmental laws such as the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Rey articulated several times throughout the hearing how laws such as the NFMA, the ESA, and NEPA, need to be "re-examined," "reviewed" and "re-opened." These laws, according to Rey, were "holding up projects on the ground," and were simply "outdated." He used section 6 of the NFMA as an example of how this legislation was "an artifact of an era" by stating that this section prohibited species conversion from hardwood stands to pine plantations, and that was old news. However, as forest activists still know, hardwood conversion is not an outdated practice. In fact, the Forest Service now has a huge pot of money in the fire budget to thin and burn hardwoods in some eastern forests, under the guise of "catastrophic wildfire threat," to ensure that pine plantations continue to exist solely for the purposes of commercial logging.

    In addition to making several remarks about wanting to change environmental laws to better meet on the ground needs, Rey expressed interest in providing the Forest Service with the ability to use categorical exclusions more often. Rey stated that any activity in or around endangered species habitat or in roadless areas requires an environmental assessment (EA) or an environmental impact statement (EIS), which wastes the time of resource managers and taxpayer dollars. He ensured Congress that he was not trying to cut the public out of the process but that he wanted it to be easier for the on the ground managers to "do their jobs" and "carry out projects on the ground." Rey failed to mention that the commercial timber sale program costs taxpayers over a billion dollars a year in direct and indirect costs. And, Congress mandated the Forest Service to do EAs and EISs because on the ground managers "doing their job" by intensely extracting resources in an unrestricted fashion caused immense ecological damage and public outcry. Congress rightly recognized that public scrutiny is needed to make sure that managers do not cause ecological harm by simply "doing their job."

Co-opting the Language of Restoration and Fuels Reduction to Continue the Commercial Timber Sale Program

    The concepts of catastrophic wildfire and "restoration" are going be major driving forces behind continuing the timber sale program under the Rey Forest Service. The money is there. The timber program is funded at $266 million dollars; the fuels reduction budget is funded at $209 million for the Forest Service. Not to mention the off budget funds, and the authority for the Forest Service to enter into 84 total stewardship contract pilot projects for restoration activities and fuel reduction projects. One of the contracting authorities, "goods for services," allows the Forest Service to trade an unlimited amount of trees to contractors for payment of their "restoration" work. Another stewardship contracting authority called "receipt retention" allows the Forest Service to create another off budget fund (like the KV fund) which any money made from restoration will go to fund more restoration projects, with little oversight or accountability. Receipt retention gives the Forest Service the incentive to mix commercial timber sales with restoration projects as so as more restoration can be funded, and more restoration work can be done, creating an endless cycle of logging for restoration.

    Mark Rey seems to believe that "science" should be the foundation for fuels reduction and restoration. However, Rey shared his insights about "science" many times in the hearing. He stated that there should be ESA exemptions for fuels reduction projects in threatened and endangered species habitat, because "science" says logging to restore that habitat is needed. The same is true according to Rey about the "science" that says we need to log in watersheds to restore them, we need to log to bring about old growth characteristics in the forest, and we need to log to deal with wildfire threats. Basically, Rey's "science," espouses that we need to log it to restore it "in every instance," insuring that the commercial timber sale program will continue to drive restoration and fuels reduction under Rey's leadership.

Overturning the Roadless Policy

    Roadless protection is also in deep peril under Rey's leadership. Rey announced at the hearing that he is participating in a "good faith dialogue" with a "consortium of conservation organizations" organized by the Teddy Roosevelt Institute, about how to change the rule to make it more "balanced." Strategically, Rey is trying to divide and conquer the alliance in favor of protecting roadless areas. By excluding environmental organizations, and by including hunting, fishing and wildlife groups along with industry in this "dialogue" he can tell Congress that "conservationists" and industry agreed on a deal on Roadless protection.

    When pressed by Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA), Tom Udall (D-NM), Dale Kildee (D-MI), and Rush Holt (D-NJ) about why the Administration is not following through with roadless protection, Rey stated that both the process of how the rule was developed and the exclusion of local communities are why the rule needs to be fixed. From a process standpoint, Rey complained that the Clinton Administration announced that they were going to protect roadless areas before the rule was finished, making it hard for those who might have wanted to go to one of the over 600 hearings feel defeated from the start. That's why, according to Rey, opponents of the roadless rule did not go to the hearings or write comments. When asked by Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM) if he was planning on holding hearings about the changes to the rule, Rey said that he is having "dialogue" now with a broad range of interests "about how to proceed," which included "local governments, conservationists, and industry." When asked by Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) why the Forest Service did not feel that 1.6 million comments favoring protection of roadless were enough to proceed in protecting roadless areas, Mark Rey stated "counting heads should not be the way we manage National Forests." Rey, also stated that "1.2 million comments were delivered in the last day" but the remaining "200,000 comments were more balanced." According to Rey 70% of those remaining 200,000 comments came from "local" interests and "local government" and they did not support roadless protection. Rey seemed to indicate that the "local" comments were the only important comments, although the forests belong to all Americans.

    When asked about his vision for protecting roadless areas, Rey stated "protecting roadless values does not mean protecting every roadless acre we have out there now." Rey elaborated that roadless areas should be protected on a forest by forest basis through the planning process, and wilderness proposals should be brought to Congress after being identified for protection through the planning process. What Rey failed to mention is that many forest plans, based on outdated science have not been revised, Congress just passed a rider allowing the Forest Service to continue with those outdated plans, the National Forest Management Act regulations are in flux, and planning alone has been insufficient in protection roadless and wilderness values.

Conclusion

    Mark Rey made it clear that his tenure as political boss of the Forest Service is going to be about serving big industry needs at the expense of ecological protection. Forest advocates have to focus their education work on Congress if the fundamental values found in environmental laws and administrative rules are to be preserved. There are not enough forest champions in Congress. It is our responsibility as advocates to educate our Members of Congress about our visions of restoration and ecological protection. We need articulate Members of Congress who are able to act to protect and make better the fundamental laws which we have fought so long to keep and to vocalize and move a vision in Congress based on protecting wildlife and wild places in perpetuity.

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