Gov. Criticized Over Stance on Forest Roads

A majority of the state’s congressional delegation has denounced the Schwarzenegger administration’s failure to defend a Clinton-era ban on road building in some of the nation’s most pristine forest lands, including more than 4 million acres in California.

All 33 of the state’s House Democrats issued a statement last week calling Schwarzenegger’s position an outrage.

“To overturn these rules and begin development and further logging strikes in the face of the campaign pledges of this governor that he was going to make a priority of the environment on a bipartisan basis,” said Rep. Hilda Solis (D-El Monte), whose district abuts portions of Angeles National Forest.

The dust-up revolves around a Bush administration proposal to repeal the most far-reaching -- and a highly contentious -- conservation move of the Clinton presidency. Just before leaving office, Clinton issued a rule barring road building and commercial logging on 58.5 million acres, or nearly one-third, of the country’s national forest land.

If the Clinton ban is dropped, slightly more than half of California’s roadless acreage would be open to road building and other development under preexisting forest guidelines. In some forests, such as the Los Padres, the Sequoia and the San Bernardino, development could occur on the majority of roadless land.

The Forest Service maintains that it has no intention of building new roads where none exist, saying that most of the back country is not commercially valuable timberland.

But that assurance hasn’t mollified Democrats and environmentalists who argue that the Clinton rule protects important watersheds and fish and wildlife habitat.

The Bush proposal is one of a number of moves the administration has taken to open public lands to more oil and gas drilling, timber cutting and motorized recreation. It would replace the Clinton prohibitions with a system in which states could petition the federal government to keep national forest areas closed to roads and development or open them up. The final decision would be up to the U.S. secretary of Agriculture, who oversees the Forest Service.

In a letter to the Bush administration, California Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman said the state would not file a petition one way or the other but welcomed a greater role in the management of its federal forests. “We commend the Bush administration for understanding the value that closer partnerships with states can offer for the future of our national forests,” Chrisman wrote.

Sandy Cooney, deputy resources secretary for communication, insisted Friday that the letter was not an endorsement of the Bush proposal. “It’s not about the Bush administration. This is about the Schwarzenegger administration working with the Forest Service to responsibly manage their forests,” he said.

Whether Chrisman’s letter was seen as action or inaction, House Democrats were not happy with it.

“It is a surprise and disappointment that Gov. Schwarzenegger has failed to support the roadless rule,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). “Gov. Schwarzenegger has missed a golden opportunity to stand up as a champion for the environment.”

House Democrats seemed particularly taken aback by the letter because they learned of it shortly after meeting with Chrisman in Washington last week.

“The secretary came to offer to work with us to protect the environment. We’re very pleased he reached out, and to find the very same day he does this -- what a shocker,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), chairwoman of the California Democratic congressional delegation.

“The governor has tried to posture himself as an environmentalist and has taken some environmental stands. So it really floored me.”

Cooney said House members could have just as easily raised the roadless issue at their luncheon meeting as Chrisman. “You can’t blame the secretary,” he said.

Some environmentalists said they had gotten mixed signals from the administration, but did not expect Chrisman’s stance. “Given how popular [the roadless rule] has been in California, we’re a little surprised that they came out with a letter that seemed to be so supportive of the Bush proposal,” said Sara Barth, regional director of the Wilderness Society.

Environmentalists said that when the Clinton protections were proposed, the vast majority of public comments from California favored them.

“The fact that Gov. Schwarzenegger is so out of touch with the people of California on this issue is really appalling,” said Richard Vandermark, co-director of the Heritage Forests Campaign.

Schwarzenegger’s record on environmental issues has been mixed. He signed legislation creating a Sierra Nevada conservancy and has urged the Bush administration to retire oil leases off the California coast. But he also vetoed a bill that would have limited air pollution at the booming ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.

His stance on the roadless rule puts him in step with other Republican governors in the West, where the Clinton road ban was attacked by logging and mining interests for placing so much national forest land off limits to development.

But it puts him at odds with several Democratic governors of states carried by Bush in the recent election. In comments on the Bush proposal, the governors of New Mexico, Wyoming and Arizona all criticized the plan for shifting federal land-use planning responsibility to the states.

Chrisman, by contrast, was enthusiastic about the shift. “Thank you again [for] extending the courtesy to states to play a greater role determining the future of inventoried roadless areas,” he wrote.

Under the Bush proposal, if a governor doesn’t petition -- as would be the case in California, according to Chrisman’s letter -- the roadless acreage in that state would be managed under individual forest plans that controlled the areas prior to the Clinton rule.

More than half of California’s 18 national forests are expected to update their plans over the next decade, and Chrisman said that would be the best time for the state to weigh in.

“We believe that the most prudent method to address the future management of roadless areas in the state of California is by working closely with the individual national forest representatives as they revise the land management plans in future years,” he wrote.

But environmentalists argue that without the Clinton ban, there is no guarantee a forest plan would maintain roadless protections.

When a new management plan for the Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California was adopted in the 1990s, entire tracts were dropped from the roadless category because logging or other development had encroached on a small portion of the acreage, said Christine Ambrose, California organizer for the American Lands Alliance.

“It’s really setting us up for all the inventoried roadless areas being knocked out,” she said. “Death by a thousand cuts of clear-cuts and spur roads.”