August 14 - Wed. 7 p.m. - QUAFCO
mtg. - Main topic will be Soleduck District projects - Yet another
new location - 210 Taylor, downtown P.T. (door by bulletin
board) - Come upstairs to #19 -[Karen Frank is graciously providing
the free meeting space]
August 17 & 18 - Family campout
in Gifford Pinchot National Forest - Have fun and learn how to
help protect this southern Cascades forest - Sponsored by Northwest
Ecosystem Alliance - See insert
Call 385-6271 for info on any of the
above
CRITICAL RIDER VOTE IN
SEPTEMBER
As reported by the Western Ancient
Forest Campaign (WAFC), the Senate Interior Appropriations bill
was not debated before Congress adjourned but will be taken up
in early September. Congress will be adjourned for the entire
month of August to allow Members to campaign. The session will
resume on Tuesday, September 3.
Discussions are continuing about
an amendment to halt the logging rider with a number of Senate
offices. The amendment would stop funding for any timber sales
under the rider for the final 3 months it will be in effect--October,
November and December of this year. Please contact Senator
Patty Murray and urge her to champion this amendment.
Once this amendment passes the Senate, it will be referred to the House. Rep. Norm Dicks has already said he will work to get it passed there, now that he understands the rider went too far.
You can contact any of our national
legislators by calling the Capitol Switchboard in D.C. at 1-800-962-FLAG
(3524) and asking for the office you want. While on recess
you can also call Senator Murray's Seattle office at 206-553-5545.
The August congressional recess offers
a tremendous opportunity for forest activists to meet with representatives
and senators. Important items to discuss include defunding of
the Rescissions Act Logging Rider, stopping Sen. Craig's "Forest
Abuse" bill, and cancellation of all Logging Rider timber
sales. These vital forest issues will be decided when Congress
reconvenes in September.
This month, plan on attending legislators'
town meetings and speaking engagements as you hear about them.
Ask our representatives and senators to support defunding of
the Logging Rider for Fiscal Year 1997 and urge them to contact
the President to cancel all rider timber sales.
SEC. GLICKMAN DEFENDS DIRECTIVE
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held an Oversight Hearing Aug. 1 to hear testimony from Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman concerning his recent directive (see last month's issue) affecting the implementation of the logging
rider. Senators Frank Murkowski
(RAK) and Larry Craig (RID) attacked the Secretary
and the Clinton Administration declaring the Administration was
playing politics and pandering to an extreme environmental organization
that advocates no commercial logging on public lands-the
Sierra Club.
Senator Murkowski noted a total of
ten changes in the Administration's position on the rider, and
then said, "All the gymnasts in Atlanta did not do this many
flip-flops, and so it is my pleasure to present you with not only
the gold medal, but the silver and bronze as well. I am not sure
what exactly to call this event, but I am confident that there
are no other serious competitors in the Administration's league."
A case with three medals was then presented to Glickman.
Senator Bill Bradley countered Murkowski
and Craig by noting that the medals were smaller than the real
thing. He also stated that the Glickman directive was not being
applauded by environmentalists saying, "The Western Ancient
Forest Campaign has a list of 275 sales that the Glickman directive
doesn't touch."
Glickman stated that the directive
was within his discretion to ensure that rider sales comply with
our nation's environmental standards. He also described the directive
as necessary to avert "warfare in the woods" between
environmentalists and timber workers.
Secretary Dan Glickman testified
that the rider, "whatever it's intentions were, created a
scenario of great distrust between the environmental community
and the timber community and the Forest Service.
It is crucial that the Forest Service
offer sales that are indeed truly emergency. The fact that people
no longer have the right to appeal--administratively and, for
the most part, judicially--places a tremendous responsibility
on me and the agency to implement this program.
Therefore, my overriding policy objective
is to ensure that these emergency legal protections apply only
to truly emergency sales; only emergency sales should receive
emergency legal protection."
Secretary Glickman also said that
his directive is expected to affect 160 sales totaling 650 million
board feet. This represents less than 15% of the sales under
the rider. WAFC's report "America's Forests at Risk"
documents 266 "bad sales" under the rider-only
twelve of which have been affected by the directive.
Now the list has grown to 275 since
the report, and was given to the Administration with a request
that these sales be cancelled. Secretary Glickman made it clear
during questioning that no sales will be abandoned as a result
of the directive, but they will be withdrawn as rider sales.
The Addy sale in Washington State has already been reissued as
a regular green sale after being withdrawn as a rider salvage
sale.
Glickman was adamant to the Committee
that the Administration would meet the timber target of 4.5 billion
board feet plus or minus 25%-despite the directive. Since
enactment of the rider, the Forest Service has offered for sale
2.9 billion board feet of salvage and anticipates offering another
one billion board feet through Dec. 31.
In addition, one billion board feet
of green sales will also be offered before the end of the year
to meet the expected green volume.
Glickman did note that market conditions
for wood are depressed and may prevent these targets from being
met. Six percent of the advertised rider sales had received no
bids, primarily due to poor market conditions. A third of these
sales were dropped from the program, the remaining sales are being
reoffered after adjustments (such as lower prices or eased environmental
restrictions) are made.
In response to this market depression
and at the request of the timber industry, Sec. Glickman has offered
many timber contract holders an extension of their contracts for
one year that will enable the purchasers to wait until market
conditions improve before they work the sales.
LYONS DEFENDS
FOREST SERVICE CONDUCT DESPITE DIRECTIVE
Under Secretary of Agriculture
Jim Lyons defended the Forest Service's handling of the logging
rider according to an article by Associated Press. "The
Forest Service has done an excellent job in implementing something
that they didn't want. There were problems with some sales, but
by and large the agency has done a good job in dealing with a
difficult situation," said Lyons.
"We've done our best
to minimize the damage wrought by the Republican rider as best
we could," but Lyons did note that the rider "has had
a tremendous impact on the public's perception of the Forest Service."
A gold medal to Mr. Lyons for understatement of the week.
LEGAL RULING ON SALE
EXTENSIONS
According to the Sierra Club
Legal Defense Fund (SCLDF), on August 6 the timber industry went
to the Oregon District Court and asked Judge Hogan to grant them
an extension of the rider for two sales, Horse Byars (a 318 sale
on the Willamette National Forest) and Shady (a post318
sale on the Lakeview Bureau of Land Management).
These two sales were just
the tip of the iceberg; if Hogan were to rule in their favor,
similar requests would flood in from other rider sales that are
uncut or partially uncut. The extension request was being watched
closely by timber companies. The amount of extra time the companies
were asking for depended on when the government actually released
the sale.
The industry contended that
the government dragged its feet, and should have released all
sales by Sept. 10, 1995. The reasoning followed that a company
holding a sale with a release date of September 30 would have
asked for a 20 day extensionthe time lost by the Administration's
delay. SCLDF argued that Congress intended to end the provision
for those types of sales on September 30, and was quite specific
about it in the rider. (Other types of rider sales continue until
Dec. 31.)
An industry spokesman said
delays caused by federal agencies and continuing legal skirmishes
have caused headaches for wood products companies. He also said
some protesters have been effective at delaying salvage operations.
However, Judge Hogan ruled
from the bench that September 30 is explicitly what Congress intended
in this section. Given the ruling, there will probably be a hurryup
effort to log the leftover sales now, and maybe a plea to the
timber industry's friends in Congress to provide an extension
of time. Keep your eyes and ears open.
**The Rocky Timber Sale area
was re-opened for public access the last week of July. Time to
get those "after" pictures...
**The Mayr Brothers Co. mill
in Hoquiam is receiving a lot of attention these days. The mill
had been extensively retooled for smaller-diameter timber and
had a remanufacturing plant to produce for the Japanese market.
The Federal Home Administration is now pressing for repayment
of its 1990 $5 million dollar loan. But the mill recently closed,
laying off 170 employees.
The company was the purchaser
of four Section 318 murrelet sales on the Olympic National Forest
which were saved from logging by the June court decision. The
company claims that not being able to log those 204 acres of old-growth
was the "direct and proximate cause" of the recent mill
closure. One would think the depressed Japanese market would
have also played a role. They now hope that the loan can be forgiven,
or that the sales will be bought back; there are differences of
opinion on what the price should be however.
It would be good to support
a business that was looking toward the future. Let's hope a solution
can be worked out that helps them while still being fair to taxpayers.
We also have to note that when we were arguing to save the murrelet sales, we often heard that we were making too much fuss over just a few acres. Now, however, those same few acres seem to have achieved more significance.
QUAFCO News August 1996
Copyright © 1996, Quilcene Ancient Forest Coalition
All rights reserved.
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