Governor stays silent on Sierra rollback plan, Contra Costa Times

By Paul Rogers
November 24, 2004

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/living/science/10261427.htm

A year ago when he was running for governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger promised to fight attempts by the Bush administration to roll back a landmark Clinton-era policy that reduced logging on 11 million acres of national forests across California's Sierra Nevada.

Yet the Bush administration killed Clinton's Sierra plan last week without a peep of protest from Schwarzenegger.

The governor and his staff also did not appeal the original Bush decision in January, when 6,200 other members of the public filed appeals with the U.S. Forest Service.

The campaign promise -- part of "Arnold's Agenda to Bring California Back" -- has now been removed from his Web site, www.joinarnold.com.

Environmentalists are incensed, charging that Schwarzenegger backed away from one of his central environmental campaign promises and one of the only ones in which the Republican candidate directly disagreed with the Bush administration on an environmental issue.

"There was a lot of talk about upholding the Clinton plan," said Paul Mason, state forestry director for the Sierra Club. "And when push came to shove, they didn't show up."

California Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman said Tuesday that the Schwarzenegger team had been in office for only two months when the original Bush decision was released in January.

"A lot of it was the timing of it," he said. "We were very new."

Chrisman also insisted the governor is keeping his promise because his staff will monitor and work with Forest Service officials.

"Now that it is done we want to make it work," he said. "We are in our viewpoint living up to the campaign promise. We're holding them accountable."

The Bush plan significantly increases logging across 400 miles of public land from Lake Tahoe to Mount Lassen to the edges of Sequoia National Park.

State Attorney General Bill Lockyer plans to file a lawsuit against the Forest Service to block the Bush plan, which he described Friday as a "full-speed retreat from environmental protection." The Schwarzenegger administration has not taken a position on the suit, Chrisman said.

Environmental groups say the issue threatens to erode Schwarzenegger's growing reputation as a pro-environment Republican who has made strides reducing air pollution and protecting oceans.

"This is 180 degrees opposite from their campaign promise," said Craig Thomas, director of the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, a coalition of 86 environmental groups, in Sacramento.

"The campaign promise was visionary, but once the governor got in office, the people in the Resources Agency have sat on their hands."

Asked in which areas the Schwarzenegger administration disagrees with the Bush administration on management of the Sierra's national forests, Chrisman declined to provide specifics.

"We are in the process of evaluating that document that was released last Thursday," he said. "We're still in the process of reviewing it."

Ten months ago, he provided a similar explanation.

"We're still taking a close look at the final framework," he told the Sacramento Bee on Jan. 22. "We'll be working to try to improve it."

The Clinton plan, known as the Sierra Nevada Framework, was completed in 2001. The plan was ordered after scientists from UC Davis sounded the alarm that Sierra forests, streams and wildlife were in decline from logging, overgrazing and development.

The 1,500-page document imposed sharp reductions in logging and cattle-grazing across 11 national forests from Bakersfield to Modoc County and was cited by environmentalists as one of Clinton's top conservation achievements. Timber and cattle industry groups worked to overturn it.

The Bush administration said the plan did not do enough to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire. Because of a century of fire suppression, some Sierra forests have 10 times as many trees per acre as their historic norm.

The Bush plan more than doubles the annual cut to 450 million board feet of timber a year on Sierra national forests, up from the 191 million annual total in the Clinton plan from 2001 to 2006 and 108 million board feet a year after that.

It also allows larger trees up to 30 inches in diameter to be logged to help defray the costs of thinning flammable brush.

"We got no letters, e-mails or phone calls in which the Schwarzenegger administration made a stated position 'yea or nay' on the January 2004 Sierra Nevada decision," said Matt Mathes, a Forest Service spokesman. "We did think it was noteworthy that the Schwarzenegger administration didn't appeal it."

In his platform last year, Schwarzenegger's promised to create a Sierra Nevada Conservancy to protect scenic land. He signed a bill in September to do that.

His platform, however, also vowed to defend Clinton's Sierra plan, calling it "a model of forest ecosystem resource protection."

"As governor, I will direct all relevant state agencies to comply fully with the framework and call on the federal government to honor its pledge to abide by the policies set forth in this unprecedented compact," it said.

Mason, of the Sierra Club, noted several former timber industry officials now work in state jobs, including Melinda Terry, former chief lobbyist with the California Forestry Association, who is now deputy secretary for resources.

Dave Bischel, president of the California Forestry Association, called any linkage "ludicrous."

"This is not a logging plan, this is a plan focused on fire reduction," Bischel said.

"The Bush plan certainly has a more direct effort at creating healthier forests than the Clinton plan," Bischel said. "It is an effort to develop a win-win to create safer communities, a safer environment for firefighters, and it creates jobs in producing wood products, which we all use."