The Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HR 1904) Should Be Passed!

05/12/2003

• The Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HR 1904) is an effort to modernize our laws so that we can better protect our water, air and wildlife habitat. Catastrophic fires in recent years have been devastating to air, water and critical habitat and we must stop this trend.
• HR 1904 is now expected to be voted on the House Floor this Friday, May 16th. Please contact your U.S. Representative and House Leadership to urge them to support passage of HR 1904!

U.S. House has been working on instituting legislative form to implement President Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative and now HR 1904 is projected to be voted on the House Floor on May 16th.

HR 1904 would empower federal land managers with the needed tools to implement sensible, scientifically supported management practices on overstocked federal forests, while establishing new conservation programs focused on improving water quality and regenerating declining forest ecosystem types on private lands. It seeks to streamline bureaucratic procedures that stymie legitimate management efforts without unduly restricting public participation. Forest management projects would still be subject to rigorous environmental analysis as well as administrative challenges and lawsuits, but the process would be completed in a matter of months rather than years, as now is the case. Tough environmental safeguards in the bill would provide heightened restrictions on management activities in inventoried roadless areas, and old-growth trees would receive additional protection. At the same time, priority would be given to management projects near communities and watersheds.

HR 1904 also would:

1. Give the Forest Service and the BLM discretionary authority to limit analysis during the NEPA-phase to the proposed agency action, meaning the agencies would not be required to analyze and describe a number of different alternatives to the preferred course while codifying the public participation requirements set out in the bipartisan Western Governors Association 10-year wildfire management strategy. Also, the bill would direct the establishment of an alternative administrative review process for the Forest Service, ensuring a more timely airing of administrative challenges. Finally, the bill would require the federal judiciary to periodically renew any preliminary injunctions issued against a project, while directing the Courts to give consideration to the potentially devastating environmental consequences associated with management inaction.

2. Establish two grant programs to encourage energy-related utilization of the otherwise valueless wood, chips, brush, thinnings and slash removed in conjunction with projects on federal forests and rangelands focused on reducing the threat of catastrophic wildfire and insect infestation and disease.

3. Create a Watershed Forestry program to provide financial and technical support needed by private forest landowners to better manage their lands in order to protect water quality, to restore watershed conditions, to improve municipal drinking water supplies, and to address threats to forest health, including catastrophic wildfire.

4. Direct the Department of Agriculture to conduct an accelerated program to plan, conduct, and promote systematic information gathering on certain insect types that have caused large-scale damage to forest ecosystems. Authorize and direct federal land managers to establish early detection programs for insect and disease infestations, with an emphasis on hardwood forests, so that agencies can isolate and treat adverse conditions before they reach epidemic levels.

5. Establish a Healthy Forests Reserve Program, which is a private forestland conservation initiative that would support the establishment of conservation easements (ranging in length from 10-years to permanent with a semi-regular buyout option) on one million acres annually of declining forest ecosystem types that are critical to, amongst other things, the recovery of threatened, endangered and other sensitive species.

For your reference:

National President's letter to President Bush (9/10/02)

National Grange Action Alert on 9/30/02 : The President's Healthy Forests Initiative Should be Supported For Enactment

Action Plan --- Please contact your U.S. Representative and House Leadership to urge them to pass HR 1904.

House Representative | House Leadership

If you have any questions or comments please contact Legislative Research Analyst Chil-Sook Hwang by fax: 202-347-1091 or by phone: 1-888-4GRANGE, ext 109. Thank you for your grassroots participation in the National Grange Legislative program.

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