Editorial: Forest Service budget attacked

Monday, March 2, 1998 | 8:30 a.m.

WESTERN Republicans in Congress are at it again.

They are threatening to cut the budget of the U.S. Forest Service because it is proposing an 18-month moratorium on road building across 33 million acres of national forests.

Bear in mind that this is the same Forest Service plan in which environmentalists gave mixed reviews. Environmentalists view the overall plan as a step forward, but have grave concerns about the proposal's exemption of forests in much of Oregon, Washington and Alaska.

A closer look at the administration's proposal by the Alaska Rainforest Campaign reveals that the Tongass National Forest in Alaska could experience a doubling of logging from 1996 levels, with more than 1,100 miles of roads expected to be built in the next decade.

But Republicans aren't content, and they are vowing to wage a war over the proposed cutbacks in logging-road construction in the rest of the nation's forests. They've suggested slashing the Forest Service's $3.3 billion budget to reflect the 75 percent reduction in federal timber harvests since 1990.

The threats have come from two congressional committees with oversight of the Forest Service. The committees just happen to be chaired by two Republicans from Alaska who support needless logging and could care less about the environment in their home state.

Rep. Don Young chairs the House Resources Committee and Sen. Frank Murkowski chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "We need to very frankly just keep cutting this budget back until they finally squeal," Young said.

If the Clinton administration thought it was buying itself a reprieve by trying to appease Murkowski and Young by exempting the Tongass National Forest from its moratorium, it should know by now that there is nothing that will satisfy Murkowski and Young's lust for logging.