House, Senate Target Policies on Environment

In actions that would weaken federal environmental policy, the House voted Thursday to allow massive unregulated logging in national forests while the Senate approved a measure that would bar temporarily the listing of any new endangered species.

In addition, the House voted to reduce by about $2 billion the combined operating budgets of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Energy.

Tucked inside the same appropriations bill is language that would rescind a court-ordered federal clean-air plan for the Los Angeles Basin and Ventura and Sacramento counties.

In its most far-reaching action of the day, the House voted to suspend most environmental regulations governing national forests to permit a dramatic acceleration of salvage logging over the next couple of years. Salvage logging targets dead and dying trees but can extend to substantial harvesting of nearby live trees.

Supporters characterized the legislation as a forest health bill. They argued that deadwood creates high fire danger in many forests, especially in the West, justifying the suspension of normal environmental oversight and the doubling of salvage logging nationwide to more than 6 billion board-feet of timber. Environmentalists and officials of the U.S. Forest Service disagreed, contending that the bill--which has yet to be considered by the Senate--would harm forest health more than help it by allowing over-cutting in environmentally sensitive areas.

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“We agree there is clearly need for forest health,” said James Lyons, an assistant secretary of agriculture who oversees the U.S. Forest Service. “But in our view, this (bill) is not necessary to achieve forest health objectives. In fact, it may have just the opposite effect.”

The timber amendment was attached to a broader bill aimed at reducing the federal deficit by cutting funding for the current fiscal year. Hours after the House approved the timber measure, Senate Republicans took action on another environmental front, winning passage of an amendment to an emergency defense spending bill that would freeze new listings of endangered species for the next six months.

Sponsored by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), the amendment follows House passage of a two-year moratorium on new listings. Both houses of Congress must pass identical versions of legislation before it can be sent to the White House for signing into law by the President.

Together, the two measures represent the Republicans’ opening salvo at one of the most bitterly contested pieces of environmental legislation ever passed--the Endangered Species Act.

Commenting on her proposed moratorium on new listings, Hutchison said that the freeze would “provide for a ‘timeout’ from new listing controversies. . . . A short moratorium will prevent further erosion of private property.”

Officials of the Department of the Interior, which is responsible for administering the act, said that Hutchison’s amendment amounts to a sneak attack on a valuable law.

“It’s another attempt to dismantle 25 years of environmental progress without the knowledge of the American people,” said Lisa Guide, a department spokeswoman.

Guide said that the freeze would put off listing decisions for “a few dozen species,” including the American jaguar and the pygmy owl. And it could affect a pending decision on whether to list the Pacific coho salmon.

The House also took a significant step toward rescinding a strict California clean-air plan that government leaders said would have “sent a wrecking ball through our state’s economy.”

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“We have stripped from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency any plans it had to impose excessive federal mandates on California’s business community . . . costing an estimated $17 billion and 165,000 jobs,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), who wrote the amendment. “This action removes a dark cloud of uncertainty that threatened to drive business out of our state.”

But environmentalists said that the action would remove a safety net that ensures state action to clean up the region’s foul air. The federal plan would go into effect should the state fail to meet its court-ordered deadlines to clean up the air.

The Clinton Administration already had agreed to delay enforcement of federal measures for two years while the state implements its own clean-air plan. But Gov. Pete Wilson, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and Republican lawmakers said that the federal plan sends a confusing signal to the business community.

Environmentalists said they hope the Senate will see that the federal plan keeps the pressure on state officials to implement their clean-air plan.

“We will work with the California delegation to help them understand why we need” the federal plan, said Cliff Gladstein, president of the Coalition for Clean Air. “In Southern California, we are halfway there. It used to be that 80% of the time the air was polluted beyond federal health standards. Now it’s 40% of the time. The state has been doing a lot. It’s just not been doing enough.”

In California, the Wilson Administration applauded the House action on clean air.

“Gov. Wilson pulled the alarm, and now the House has responded,” said James Strock, secretary of the state’s Environmental Protection Agency.

Times staff writer Faye Fiore contributed to this story.

* REGULATORY REFORM

Clinton announces initiatives to reduce federal regulations. A15