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New Roads, Old Rhetoric

12 July, 2004

Yesterday, the Bush administration made clear its intention to view our National Forests as tree farms rather than wilderness areas. At the behest of timber companies and the western state governors whose campaigns they fund, the Forest Service announced a repeal of the contentious roadless areas protection rule implemented by Bill Clinton on his way out the White House door.

Bush got off on a bad foot with environmentalists when one of his first acts in office was to suspend many of Clinton's environmental policies that, while in the works for many years, were only finally implemented in the eleventh hour of his administration. The status of the roadless rule was cast into further limbo by three court cases (two of which are being appealed) casting doubt on the legality of the broad protections granted by the rule.

The new rule essentially reinstates the pre-Clinton status quo and turns decisionmaking about national lands over to states and communities. States may petition the federal government to grant protections to certain lands on a case-by-case basis. Environmentalists are understandably concerned, as the states that house most of our nation's roadless areas are unlikely to voluntarily ask for roadless designations. Agriculture Secretary Anne Venneman's comment that "Our actions today advance President Bush's commitment to cooperatively conserving roadless areas on national forests" is thus an empty platitude.

The new roadless rule draws on three major themes of the Bush administration's approach to environmental issues. First, it evidences an aversion to centralized federal regulation. Cooperation with local people and state authorities, in order to be responsive to the needs of particular places, is to be the hallmark of environmental protection. Stated in this fashion, it's hard to disagree with this principle. Local investment in conservation, rather than technocracy, is vital to creating a sustainable way of life. The problem is that for the Bush administration, this principle has become infected with free market ideology, turning it into a blind faith in the outcomes of unsupervised decisionmaking -- symbolized in self-parodying fashion by his proposals for voluntary greenhouse gas reduction.

In the case of the new roadless rule, it would make more sense to create an opt-out, rather than an opt-in, system. This would allow states and communities to insist on special consideration of circumstances (thus also avoiding some legal challenges, which were based on the fact that the roadless rule's blanket protection conflicted with other laws' requirements for active land management). At the same time, it would advantage conservation by making "no roads" the status quo and placing the burden of proof and the requirement to take initiative on those who wished to build, not on those who wish to protect.

Second, the Bush administration has a hostility to environmental regulations in principle. They don't wait for environmental laws to cause actual harm to their interests. The mere presence of a rule is a burr on their behind, reminding them that their reach is not infinite. This seems the only conclusion to draw about the intensity of the administration's desire to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, given that the impact of ANWR drilling on the nation's energy security and oil companies' bottom lines is minor. It would be a symbolic victory, putting environmentalism in its place.

The relevance of this point is captured in the interim rule that the administration reinstated until the main plan (which must still undergo a public comment period) goes into effect. The interim rule directs the forest service to approve any proposed development in roadless areas. Yet officials say not to worry -- during the 2 years that the interim rule has been in effect, not a single new road was approved. The Forest Service's eagerness to give away timber has satiated the wood market, meaning that (for now) timber companies don't need to log in wilderness areas. But the administration is making sure that in principle they could.

Third, the administration is a fan of anti-judiciary rhetoric. This principle extends beyond environmental issues, being expressed most clearly in the claim that gay marriage is being imposed by "activist judges." Environmentally, it reared its head in the Healthy Forests Initiative, as the administration inflated claims that lawsuits were bogging down fuel reduction projects. In the case of the roadless rule, the administration claims that it is trapped in legal limbo because of challenges to Clinton's rule, and that the endless litigation can only be stopped by the new rule. Indeed, some officials go so far as to wash their hands of the new rule by claiming that they were forced into it by the courts -- stronger protection wouldn't stand up.

Whatever the merits of the complaint about excessive litigation, I see no reason to think that the new rule would improve the situation. A blanket rule like Clinton's has the virtue of simplicity. One court decision can settle the issue across the board. But the new rule will multiply the number of localized management plans, each indpendent and proposing its own particular mix of remedies. This is surely a recipe for expanding the paperwork and court time expended on roadless area conservation (or lack thereof) as each case has to be fought separately.

Stentor Danielson