Logging plan may hasten projects in Sierra, Sacramento Bee

By Michael Doyle

July 24, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Congress is returning to the political thicket of Sierra Nevada logging.

 A San Joaquin Valley lawmaker wants to speed logging in several Sierra forests. Environmentalists say they fear for the fate of the Giant Sequoia National Monument and vulnerable species.

Soon, House members will have to sort out the renewed conflict.

 "We need legislation to clear this up," said Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare.

 Thursday, a House subcommittee will conduct the first hearing into Nunes' controversial logging legislation. Newly minted but months in the making, the bill would essentially streamline several timber projects on the Sequoia and Sierra national forests.

Some of the logging would be on the 327,769-acre Giant Sequoia National Monument, established by President Clinton in April 2000.

 Some would be part of what's called the Kings River Project, a nearby forest-thinning and restoration plan covering 131,500 acres on the Sierra National Forest .

 For Nunes and representatives of Sierra Forest Products near Porterville , the legislation is a reasonable way to keep forests healthy and sawmill workers employed.

 "If they are not able to harvest the timber, the plant is going to close, which is sad," Nunes said.

 But for environmentalists, the bill represents an end run around necessary forest protections.

 "Mr. Nunes apparently wants all (legal) challenges to end and wants to allow the extraction of trees up to 30 inches in diameter to be allowed without being concerned about any other laws," said Selma resident and environmental activist Richard Kangas.

The Republican majority on the 21-member House Forests and Forest Health Subcommittee is likely to be more sympathetic to Nunes. The panel is stocked with Western conservatives, and its chief of staff is a former vice president of the American Forest and Paper Association.

 And by summoning as a witness Kent Duysen, general manager of Sierra Forest Products, the panel is going to hear a definitive hometown defense of the Nunes legislation.

 The long-term legislative prospects, though, remain uncertain.

 So far, neither of California 's Democratic senators has written a bill comparable to the one that Nunes began working on last year and formally introduced on July 11.

 "The sequoia monument is sacred ground to the people of California ," said Craig Thomas, director of the Sacramento-based Sierra Forest Protection Campaign. "(They) are not going to stand for aggressive logging on the monument."

 The bill melds two forest programs.

 One involves timber sales that had been in the works just before Clinton designated the Giant Sequoia National Monument . Under the monument's terms, the sales were supposed to go forward. They have not.

 Nunes complained that "extremist environmental groups" stalled the logging through unwarranted lawsuits. His legislation would authorize the grandfathered logging sales to "proceed immediately."

 Thomas retorted that timber companies themselves stalled for several years because of low timber prices. By the time loggers were ready to proceed, Thomas said, old environmental studies had become outdated and needed revision in order to account for vulnerable species such as the Pacific fisher.

 The bill also provides fuel for the Kings River Project, described as an experiment using controlled fire and tree-thinning to show how timber harvesting and forest protection can co-exist.

 The bill essentially neutralizes environmental reviews, by declaring that the 30-year project "shall be deemed to be in compliance" with federal environmental laws.

"It's really just a wrongheaded approach," Thomas said.