Elizabeth Furse: “I am here today to participate in a bipartisan amendment which will fix the biggest environmental mistake of the 104th…”

“I am here today to participate in a bipartisan amendment which will fix the biggest environmental mistake of the 104th Congress. That mistake is the so-called emergency salvage timber program, passed as a rider last July, which suspended all environmental laws in every national forest in the country. Now, America is a nation of laws. Americans are law-abiding citizens. But the salvage rider has put logging outside the law. No other industry in this country is allowed to operate outside the law. By circumventing the normal avenues of public input, the rider has reignited a war in the woods. I do not oppose logging, no one who has cosponsored this amendment opposes logging, as long as it is done in compliance with our environmental laws. Let me be very clear. State and private citizens must comply with State forest lands on their property. Why should the Federal Government not do the same on Federal lands? This amendment is a modest amendment. It just asks that we not spend money outside the law. The salvage rider was not what it seemed. Although touted as an emergency measure to cut dead and dying timber, the rider has been used to clearcut healthy forests, including some hundreds of years old. For example, less than 40 percent of the trees in the Shanty salvage sale in California had any signs of mortality.”