Logging Curbs to Protect Owl Ordered; Fight Goes On : Environment: The Administration asks Congress to OK a weaker measure that would not cost as many jobs.

The Bush Administration set the stage Thursday for a final showdown over protection of the northern spotted owl, as a government panel ordered stiff new restrictions on logging in the Northwest and the Administration moved promptly to dilute them.

After months of deliberation, a panel of top government scientists, convened under the Endangered Species Act, ordered stringent new measures to help restore the spotted owl population, but at a loss of about 32,000 timber jobs in the Northwest.

Almost as soon as copies of the report were distributed, however, the Administration unveiled its own, admittedly weaker, proposal for saving the spotted owl and called on Congress to enact it promptly as an alternative to the scientists’ plan. Under current law, the scientists’ plan takes effect unless Congress intervenes.

Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. conceded that the Administration’s proposal would merely preserve the owl population at current levels, rather than increase it enough to take the bird off the endangered list. But he said it would cost only about 15,000 timber jobs in the area, which includes portions of Washington state, Oregon and Northern California.

As the two sides contended, another panel, the Endangered Species Committee--popularly known as the “God Squad”--also took action, voting to allow the sale of 13 out of 44 federal timber tracts whose transfer previously had been blocked because they are prime habitats for the owl. The 44 parcels contained about 4,600 acres.

Although the acreage involved is relatively modest, the move is regarded as important symbolically because it is rare and reflects the Administration’s sentiments. The action marks the first time that the panel--set up to resolve disputes under the 1973 Endangered Species Act--has overturned a ban on such sales.

The flurry of developments effectively thrusts the explosive issue into the hands of Congress after years of bitter struggle between environmentalists and the lumber industry.

However, it was not immediately clear precisely how lawmakers would react. Although Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) was expected to introduce the Administration proposal next week, initial indications were that it was unlikely to receive enough votes to pass.

The House Interior and Agriculture committees already are working jointly on more sweeping legislation that would set aside large tracts of protected woodlands in the Northwest to preserve the owls and various kinds of fish. A bill is expected sometime this summer.

The order by the group of government scientists would create about 196 “designated conservation areas” that are critical to the habitat of the spotted owl and would permanently bar timber-cutting from them.

It also would set guidelines for managing more than 7.5 million acres of federal lands, inside and outside the new conservation areas. And it would call on states to help set strict rules for lands adjoining them that are not federally owned.

The Administration’s plan would take essentially the same approach but would sharply reduce the land that would be protected, eliminating 121 of the 196 proposed new conservation areas, primarily in coastal areas of the three states but also in Cascade Mountains areas.

It also would shrink the area of protected federal land outside the conservation areas to 4.9 million acres.

Reaction on both sides was as had been expected. Environmentalists, enraged over the Administration’s decision, contended that it was launching an assault on the Endangered Species Act, and the lumber industry gave Lujan’s proposals grudging approval.

George T. Frampton Jr., president of the Wilderness Society, called the Administration’s rival plan “an unprecedented declaration of war on the use of sound science to develop sound public policy” and “a disgrace and an embarrassment.”

And Peter A. A. Berle, president of the National Audubon Society, complained that the Administration’s actions on Thursday were “acts of hypocrisy”--particularly coming on the heels of Bush’s recent decision to attend the international Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

“President Bush’s message to the Rio conference will have to be ‘do as I say, not as I do,’ ” Berle said in a statement. “He is playing a callous shell game with the public’s concern for the environment.

Lujan, however, denied that the Administration was trying to “rewrite” the Endangered Species Act, insisting that Bush’s alternative would apply only to the spotted owl case, not to all endangered species.

“The Endangered Species Act is driven principally by biological findings,” he said in a statement explaining the Administration’s action. He described the alternative plan as an attempt to take account of the economic considerations as well.

Lujan also pledged that “unless and until” Congress approves the President’s rival plan, the Administration would carry out the order drafted by the panel of government scientists. That group’s report “is what we (in the Interior Department will) live by,” he said.

In one ironic note, however, the Administration conceded that despite the restrictions that it is recommending to protect the spotted owl, the alternative approach would preserve the bird for about 100 years. After that, the spotted owl still would become extinct.

The prospect drew skeptical looks from several strategists. “If that’s all the Administration is buying by saving these 15,000 jobs, they’re ending up with the worst of both worlds,” one analyst said.

Sen. Bob Packwood, (R-Ore.), a key figure in the spotted owl debate, rejected the Administration’s plan precisely on grounds that the compromise it proposes would not satisfy either side.

“While I appreciate the secretary’s effort” to cut potential job losses, Packwood said, “I think it comes down to this: Are you for people or for the bird?” Packwood said he hopes to amend the Endangered Species Act “so that people finally get the same consideration as owls.”

The ruling by the seven-member Endangered Species Committee--unblocking the sale of 13 of the 44 federal timber tracts to private interests--also was controversial.

Although Lujan had proposed that approach as a compromise, it was opposed by the chief of the Administration’s own Environmental Protection Agency, William K. Reilly, who warned that by approving it the panel would be encouraging case-by-case attacks on lower-level decisions.

The committee, which got it’s “God Squad” nickname because the law gives it unquestioned authority to decide the fate of endangered species, also ordered lower-level federal agencies to work out a long-term plan for the sale of timber tracts in areas deemed critical to the spotted owl.

The vote in both cases was 5 to 2, with Reilly and Thomas Walsh, the Portland-area rapid transit manager who represented Oregon on the Endangered Species Committee, opposing the sales.

Besides Lujan, Reilly and Walsh, the panel includes Agriculture Secretary Edward R. Madigan; Michael J. Boskin, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers; Michael P. W. Stone, secretary of the Army, and John A. Knauss, undersecretary of commerce.

Despite the Administration’s efforts to throw the controversy into the lap of Congress, there was no guarantee that the lawmakers’ decision would settle the issue. Some analysts predicted a flurry of court suits, particularly if the alternative bill fails.

The sale of the 44 federal timber tracts already had been blocked by a federal judge in Seattle, who had halted all future timber sales--although not current logging--until the recovery plan was produced. Several other suits also are in the courts.

The development of a plan similar to that unveiled by the panel of government scientists on Thursday is supposed to be a routine occurrence once a species of bird, animal or fish has been declared to be endangered, although most of them have not stirred this much controversy.

The law, enacted in 1973, was designed to protect species that are deemed in danger of extinction and to force authorities to develop plans for reviving them. The act has been considered a landmark in environmental legislation.