Thursday, Sept. 9, 1999 | 5:49 a.m.
WASHINGTON -The Senate voted Thursday to let two federal agencies decide whether to conduct detailed surveys of species before allowing logging or recreation on federal lands.
Senators voted 52-45 to defeat an amendment by Sen. Charles Robb, D-Va., that would have deleted the surveys proposal from a $14.1 billion Interior appropriations bill.
The proposal by Sens. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, allows the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to use existing studies and data to meet survey requirements rather than conducting individual surveys for each sensitive species.
GOP senators said Forest Service officials don't even know how to survey for some of the rare species and that it could cost as much as $9 billion to implement the surveys nationwide - an amount Congress can't afford.
"The effect of the Robb amendment will be to terminate all harvest on all public lands in the United States and much recreational activity that requires any kind of improvement," Gorton said before the vote.
The Forest Service's failure to adequately conduct surveys for 77 rare species prompted U.S. District Judge William Dwyer of Seattle to put 217 million board feet of timber sales on hold last month in western Washington, western Oregon and northern California.
The amount of logging Dwyer put on hold is equal to one-fourth of the total annual harvest allowed in Northwest federal forests under the Northwest Forest Plan. That Clinton administration document was written in the wake of court fights over habitat for the threatened spotted owl.
GOP senators portrayed the court action as a grave threat to the timber industry.
"If you distill this down, this is about pitting a survey of fungus, snails and slugs against children and families who need streets and schools," said Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who backed the Gorton proposal.
Robb argued in vain that the survey proposal will prompt lawsuits and actually further delay timber sales.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., joined with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in opposing the Gorton proposal, saying the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan shouldn't be abandoned.
Under the forest plan, agency officials are supposed to assess the levels of mollusks, lichens and mammals - things like the red tree vole and orange cup fungi - to make sure that logging or other activities won't harm the rare species.
Environmentalists worry that if Forest Service and BLM officials are given flexibility on conducting the surveys, they will skip them and harm wildlife to boost timber sales.
"It just means the Forest Service can go willy nilly about cutting trees without thinking about the consequences," said Ken Rait of the Oregon Natural Resources Council, based in Portland, Ore.
Dwyer's ruling, which is temporary until he makes a final decision, probably this fall, came in a lawsuit filed by Rait's group and 12 others, who contend the survey failures violate the Northwest Forest Plan.
Gorton's proposal is aimed at preventing legal decisions similar to Dwyer's for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1; the proposal's impact on the Dwyer decision is unclear.
If the Gorton proposal becomes law, timber industry officials hope government attorneys use it to persuade Dwyer to lift the logging injunction.
"It is our reading of the law that the surveys that have been done to date could be deemed sufficient," said Jim Geisinger, president of the Northwest Forestry Association in Portland, Ore.
Meanwhile, Democrats are looking for a third option - a way to get the surveys done quickly and still satisfy Forest Service obligations under the Northwest Forest Plan.
Wyden and Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., plan to offer an amendment to the interior appropriations bill next week that would give the Forest Service an additional $10 million to implement survey requirements in the Pacific Northwest.
The amendment also would require the Forest Service to more quickly lay out a plan to Congress to get the surveys done.
The Forest Service has said it will have the draft of a plan to meet survey requirements by February and a final document by June.
Josh Kardon, Wyden's chief of staff, said that while Wyden's proposed timetable is still unclear, the Forest Service isn't acting fast enough.
"The Forest Service's current schedule seems likely to cause unnecessary pain to a lot of Oregonians," he said.
No further votes are expected on the Senate's Interior bill until next week.
The already-passed House version of the bill has no survey proposal.
Environmentalists hope House conferees reject the Gorton measure or that President Clinton vetoes any final Interior appropriations bill that contains the survey proposal.
The administration has threatened to veto any Interior bill that contains objectionable policy provisions known as "riders."
archive
