April 14, 2004
P R E S S R E L E A S E
For more information -
Andy Stahl, FSEEE (541) 484-2692
Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics filed a formal rule-making petition with the United States Department of Agriculture asking for the appointment of independent administrative law judges to decide citizen appeals of Forest Service logging decisions.
“It’s a simple matter of fairness,” explained FSEEE Executive Director Andy Stahl. “The Forest Service keeps most of the money paid by loggers to cut the public’s timber. With millions of budget dollars at stake for the agency, there’s no way a Forest Service employee can be impartial when deciding between the interests of citizens who want their forests protected versus timber companies who want to cut the trees.”
The FSEEE petition asks the Secretary of Agriculture to amend the existing appeal rules, which rely upon Forest Service employees to decide appeals, when citizens appeal logging decisions where the Forest Service will keep the timber sale receipts.
“This issue has come to a head with the up-coming Biscuit salvage sale,” explained Stahl. “The Forest Service will siphon about $26 million into its own off-budget accounts from selling Biscuit timber. How can anyone expect the Forest Service to be objective when it considers the arguments of environmental opponents of logging versus timber supporters with that much budget money at stake for the agency?” Stahl asked.
In a non-binding legal opinion written last year regarding a Forest Service salvage sale, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Noonan wrote: “A bureaucracy, protecting its turf and cherishing the number of its employees and the extent of its empire, can have as lively a bias towards its budget as any old-fashioned venal politician might have in his pocketbook.” Earth Island Institute v. U.S. Forest Service, 02-16999 (December 11, 2003).
A 1997 Forest Service internal review of its off-budget trust funds found that “a perception exists that collections from timber receipts are "our money". This perception influences responsible use and management of permanent and trust funds. . . . When timber receipts are viewed as "our money", objectivity in determining the appropriateness of projects is impaired . . .”
“The Constitution is clear,” Stahl concluded, “those who perform the functions of judges in our government must be free from financial conflicts-of-interest. The Forest Service is rife with such conflicts. Only through the appointment of truly independent administrative law judges can we move towards national forest decisions that don’t favor logging over all other uses.”
Click here for FSEEE’s rulemaking petition [.doc], or here for a PDF version.
