Administration Seeks to Scrap Clinton Regulation on Logging

The White House has instructed the Justice Department to research ways to scuttle a Clinton administration regulation protecting 60 million acres of national forests from logging and road-building, sources said Wednesday.

The administration has until late next week to file a brief with U.S. District Court in Boise, Idaho, declaring whether it intends to support the U.S. Forest Service regulation that was announced on Jan. 5. It was among scores of rules and orders that Bush put on hold after taking office and is the subject of a federal suit brought by the timber industry and the states of Idaho, Utah and Alaska.

According to the sources, high-ranking White House policy officials instructed Justice Department lawyers to find a way to set aside the regulation until the administration can produce either a less restrictive proposal or eliminate the rule entirely. The lawyers were asked “to see if they can make this work legally,” explained one administration source.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said that “we have not finalized our decision” but that the administration “is committed to providing protection in roadless areas” of national forests.

The regulation was one of the most far-reaching of President Clinton’s environmental initiatives and would protect more than a quarter of federal forests--including Alaska’s Tongass National Forest--from most commercial logging and new road construction.