July 27, 1995. Remember this as the day when President Bill Clinton signed into law a bill that wiped out virtually all environmental laws on national forests and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands. This law, the Emergency Salvage Timber Program, mandates that public forests be cut "to the maximum extent feasible"... "notwithstanding any other provision of law," including judicial orders. That means total logging, in total absence of law. The provision extends to December 31, 1996, at which time the two land management agencies can offer as many sales as they can dream up. The cutting can take as long as they like.
The vehicle was a "rescissions" bill, a budget-cutting measure that rescinded money already allocated for federal programs. It was a big bill, with a lot of bipartisan support; everyone in Congress wants to look like they're for reducing bloated government, especially on the backs of the poor and disenfranchised. The president wanted this bill, too. So it was a good opportunity for timber sluts Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC), chair of the House Resources Committee, Rep. Don Young (R- AK), and Senator Slade Gorton (R-WA) to add on an unrelated amendment--a "rider"--to the bill, HR 1944. If the legislation had been introduced on its own, it might have died in committee or actually gotten vetoed. In addition to rescissions, the bill provides for flood relief for California, bomb relief for Oklahoma City (what politician would vote against these?), and Clinton's own police-state "anti- terrorism" initiative. Hell, it was a shoo-in.
In May, Clinton announced that he would veto the bill, stating specifically that among the reasons was the salvage rider, which would "...essentially throw out all environmental laws." We all breathed a great sigh of relief. But just like in the horror movies--when you think the psycho killer mutant creature is dead, it leaps back up when the hero's back is turned--the bill came back to life. Senator Mark Hatfield (R- OR), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, saw to it that the rider made it back onto a resurrected rescissions bill, introduced June 30. The pathologically spineless Clinton flip-flopped and agreed to sign it. Addressing the salvage amendment, the president declared, "My administration will carry out this program with its full resources and a strong commitment." That program is now law.
What The Bill Does
During the "emergency" period (till the end of 1996), the US Forest Service (USFS) and the BLM are enjoined to prepare and award as many salvage timber sales as they possibly can above and beyond the normally programmed level. Salvage is defined as the removal of trees that are diseased or insect- infested, dead, damaged, down, burned or "imminently susceptible" to being burned or eaten by bugs. It also includes "associated" trees or, get this, "trees lacking the characteristics of a healthy and viable ecosystem." Basically, all trees on all national forests and BLM lands are on the block. The only lands exempted from the saws are designated wilderness areas, wilderness study areas in Montana and Colorado, roadless areas recommended for wilderness in agency planning documents, or any area protected by federal statute. In addition to new sales, the law specifies that salvage sales in preparation fall under its provisions.
Another chilling provision of this law directs the agencies to employ "private contractors" in its salvage operations. There aren't anywhere near enough federal employees to expedite the law's mandates, so the management of the public's forests is being turned over directly to the timber companies who will prepare and advertise the sales, then buy and cut the trees.
While the salvage rider states that the cutting is to take place "notwithstanding any other provision of law," it singles out for particular contempt and exemption the Competition in Contracting Act, Federal Procurement Policy Act, Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act, Federal Land Policy and Management Act, National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), National Forest Management Act, Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act, and anything else not specified, including international agreements.
Just in case you were wondering where the money is going to come from for all this bureaucratic and extractive activity, the taxpayers are expected to shell out--cost is no object. "Salvage timber sales... shall not be precluded because the costs... are likely to exceed the revenues," reads the law. Direct costs could be as much as $300 million. Indirect costs in the form of environmental damage could easily reach the billions. It's ironic that in a budget-cutting measure such as this rescissions bill, Congress should hand a blank check to federal agencies to spend on the timber industry. So much for fiscal conservatism.
A lesser known but equally important part of the rider does not involve salvage at all. Instead it focuses on that area of the Northwest containing the habitat of the northern spotted owl. The law overrides any and all outstanding court challenges to the president's Option 9 plan, reverses court decisions, lifts injunctions and removes any restraining orders against it. It then directs the agencies to cut all lands specified under the plan and exempts them from all environmental law to boot, particularly the ESA and NEPA.
No More Public Input
For those out there who thought the public had something to do with public lands, think again. First of all, any current court rulings that have held off the salvage sacking of forests around the country are declared null and void. Cutting may begin immediately. BLM and USFS lands now are managed solely for the benefit of timber extractive interests, not the public good.
The new law removes the opportunity for citizens to administratively appeal the decisions of agency officials. Since the scope of planning and documentation is left entirely up to the whim of land managers, there is no requirement for public input either. While the law states that "[C]itizens' rights to court action are not prohibited," it's impossible for such actions to succeed. A lawsuit must be filed in the local federal district court within 15 days of the initial advertisement of a sale, but a lawyer will tell you that such an amount of time is ludicrously short and is a de facto prohibition in itself. Should a case be filed, the sale is put on hold for 45 days, after which no injunction or restraining order against the cutting can be granted between court proceedings, rulings, etc. So even if citizens could win on the merits of a case, sales may be cut during litigation.
Ultimately, the only way citizens may prevail is if a judge rules that an agency has acted in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner. But since there are no longer any environmental laws for them to break, and they plan and implement these sales at their whim, agency officials are practically required to be arbitrary and capricious. Ain't no lawsuits gonna be won by citizens under this law, period.
Jessica Matthews recently stated in the Washington Post, "Closing of a public resource to judicial review is dangerous to a democracy and unworthy of a nation of laws." It is this threat that provokes an alliance of many otherwise disparate interests. For instance, a coalition of groups including the American Indian Movement, National People's Campaign, We the People and the Taxpayer Assets Project, in addition to many grassroots environmental groups, expressed bitter opposition to the salvage rider. They stated that if Clinton and the government "cannot, or will not provide us with our inalienable rights and responsible representation... it will be our duty to replace you with a government whose intent is to represent that majority, not just corporate interests." The salvage rider is a correctly perceived threat to democracy and civil rights, clearly understood by groups who represent the interests of the people, not industry.
What Happens Now
BLM and USFS managers laid the groundwork for the rider by packaging the so-called salvage plan to snow an environmentally friendly but ecologically ignorant public into approval. In a 1992 memo to her timber planning staff, Bear Valley Presale manager Barbara Boaz of the Malheur National Forest, in eastern Oregon, relayed orders from her superiors: "... even if a sale is totally green, as long as one board comes off that would qualify as salvage on the Salvage Sale Fund Plan, it should be called Salvage. It's a political thing."
And the BLM, never so complicated in its workings as the USFS, simply noted in another leaked memo that the salvage rider was "more or less a license for unregulated timber harvest."
While the people's sovereignty over public lands was being signed over to corporate entities whose goals are inimical to the needs and welfare of the American people, bootlicking Bill Clinton told greedy House Speaker Newt Gingrich that he "appreciate[s] the changes that the Congress has made." The timber industry is back in business and the multinationals are getting ever so rich.
Look, forget court politics. The upshot of the salvage rider's passage is this: the two largest land management agencies in the country have to offer as much salvage timber as they can to industry, there are no environmental laws, and everyone gets to do exactly as they please. What do you think is going to happen?
Right now, two areas of old-growth forest here in Oregon are expected to be attacked by chainsaws. Activists are planning to defend the Sugarloaf sale in the Siskiyou National Forest, which has been released by this law. Earth First!ers are preparing to occupy the salvage sale of Warner Creek in Willamette National Forest. It too is released from its injunctions. All over the country, places like these that have been fought over for years now lie legally defenseless.
It's gone, folks--it's all gone. Public lands law, for what little good it did our nation's wild forests, has been stripped away. With it has fallen the pretense that ours is a democratic nation of citizens, protecting and enjoying the common wealth. With this salvage law, we are facing nothing less than enclosure--the transfer of our common lands into private hands. We have no choice but to revolt.
What You Can Do
Help organize the Salvage Rebellion: write Land of Disenchantment Earth First!, PO Box 40445, Albuquerque, NM 97196.
Never stop writing and writing letters and op-ed pieces to newspapers. If they can do ads, so can we; get it on the TV. Feed our journalist friends; feed 'em good. They like conflict and controversy, with plenty of catchy slogans and exciting images.
Demand that national environmental groups act.
Don't let the politicians so much as show up at a barbecue or luncheon without being hounded on this issue.
Don't let scientists hide any longer behind "objectivity" as an excuse for inaction and servility to power. It's time to loudly and publicly repudiate biostitutes and "agency science."
The US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management must face relentless pressure from us. Get agency employees to mutiny--with press if possible--and testify to the damage. Anyone who continues to work for the agencies as a "public servant" under this regime has no integrity, and should be held accountable to the "taxpayers." The Forest Service is already demoralized; let's collapse this dysfunctional bureaucracy once and for all.
Defund the Forest Service and the BLM: the Forest Service just got an increase in its timber program budget of $30 million for fiscal year 1996 in anticipation of the rider. With zero bucks, however, you get zero cut. An opportunity is the upcoming Senate appropriations bill. For more info on this campaign contact Save America's Forests at (202) 544-9219.
Go out there and get between the trees and the saws. Resist as much as possible.