Editorial: Alaskans try to fell foresters

Monday, Nov. 30, 1998 | 10:49 a.m.

Two members of the Alaskan congressional delegation are at it again, seeking to silence the U.S. Forest Service for its attempt to initiate sound policies in the management of national forest policy. What really troubles Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, and Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, are the Forest Service's plans to preserve the national forests instead of allowing them to be devastated by the timber industry, which is politically powerful in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.

Instead of debating national forest issues on their merits, Young and Murkowski have waged a mean-spirited campaign against the Forest Service, trying to force it into submission. The latest chapter in their bullying textbook is to assert that the Forest Service has been illegally lobbying members of Congress. But their suggestion, that the Forest Service's distribution of information about its forest management to the media is tantamount to lobbying Congress, is ridiculous.

Yet Young and Murkowski are asking the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to see whether the Forest Service violated the law. An Associated Press report last week ominously noted that if the GAO determines the law was broken, congressional committees could withhold funds from the Forest Service's budget next year.

Despite the outrageous request by Murkowski and Young, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. Earlier this year Young demanded that the regional forester for the Forest Service's Southwestern Region list those employees who belonged to environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society. Fortunately Regional Forester Eleanor Towns didn't back down to this attempt at intimidation, denying Young's request because federal privacy law prohibits the agency from keeping records on information protected by the First Amendment.

There is nothing wrong with an honest and healthy debate on national forest policies. But the bullying tactics of Murkowski and Young have no place in Congress, which is still considered one of the world's great deliberative bodies. It sure is hard to find a bright spot in these amateurish antics by the two Alaskans, but if there is one it is that such overt bullying will be met with a backlash by members of Congress, who genuinely care about fairness and the environment.

The incoming House speaker, Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., has pledged that unlike Newt Gingrich, he will try to work with Democrats, not inject unnecessary partisanship on important issues. Hopefully this message of civility also will be welcome in the Senate. It is now time for the GOP leadership to make good on its word, even if it means taking to task some of its own members.