by AFRC News
Loggers World-October 2002
Realizing that they have been out on the fringe, the national environmental organizations have organized a giant campaign against the President's Healthy Forests Initiative and legislative plans in Congress. They are attempting to resurrect the 1995 Salvage Rider and all the mis-information surrounding it. They are claiming that Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey wrote the Salvage Rider when he worked for Senator Craig on the Energy Committee. The fact is that the 1995 legislation was initiated and written in the House.
The other spin being thrown out there by the environmentalists is that this is all about cutting large fire resistant trees and old growth. Once again, the President's initiative focuses on fuels reduction projects and thinning. The stewardship contracting proposal is all about how to reduce the expense to the taxpayers while removing small trees that contain little or no value. The existing timber sale program is more than capable to administer projects where the trees to be removed contain enough value to offset the work.