STOP ADMINISTRATION ATTACKS ON OUR NATIONAL FORESTS

America's National Forests are again under attack by the Bush administration. The administration's goal is simple: virtually eliminate public input into forest management decisions, and give extractive industries unfettered access to America's forests, regardless of the cost.

A key component of the Bush administration's anti-conservation agenda is to change federal regulations -- proposals that usually do not make it to the front page of the newspaper, but which can fundamentally change how forests are managed and what rights the public has to weigh in on management decisions. The administration is also trying to weaken the newly established Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

We need your help. Please sign this petition to send a letter to your members of Congress urging them to contact the administration and insist that it not rewrite and weaken the NFMA regulations and that it refrain from any efforts to abandon the historic and popular Roadless Rule. Our National Forests are treasures that belong to every American, and their last remaining wildlands deserve strong protections.
Dear Senator/Representative,

I am concerned about recent or planned regulatory attacks on the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and protection of roadless areas in our national forests.

I writing to urge you to contact the administration and demand that it withdraw the re-write of the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) regulations that were published in the Federal Register on December 6, 2002. The proposed regulations represent a blatant effort to undermine 27 years of forest policy that was established to increase agency accountability and environmental protection.

In addition, I urge you to contact the administration and insist that it refrain from any efforts to abandon the historic and popular Roadless Area Conservation Rule that was originally adopted in January of 2001. I am especially concerned about efforts to undermine protection for roadless areas in the Tongass National Forest. The Roadless Rule, issued after the most extensive public rulemaking in history, was broadly supported by the American people; 95% of the more than 2.2 million comments were in favor of roadless protection.

Regarding the NFMA regulations, I am particularly opposed to the attempt to change what have historically been mandatory and enforceable requirements for surveying and maintaining viable populations of wildlife in our national forests. Neither wildlife alternative in the December 6 proposal would retain this critical commitment. One turns it into an optional consideration left to the complete discretion of forest planners, while the other doesn't require population or species protections at all.

Similarly unacceptable is the proposal's indication that forest planning may be categorically excluded from the National Environmental Policy Act. As our nation's bedrock environmental law, NEPA ensures both full consideration of potential environmental impacts of planning decisions and meaningful public participation. I am also troubled that the draft regulations seek to create a presumption that all national forest lands are open to logging, grazing, mining, off-road vehicles, and other commercial uses unless specifically prohibited, making other considerations like fish and wildlife of secondary importance.

In fact, I oppose the overall direction of the proposed regulations, which seek to give forest managers total discretion to manage public forests however they see fit while reducing scientific and public input. This proposal would eliminate balance, scientific credibility, and public accountability in forest planning, the very foundations upon which the National Forest Management Act is based.

Again, I urge you contact the administration and demand that it uphold the Roadless Rule of 2001 to protect our last wild forests, especially Alaska's Tongass Rainforest and to abandon these proposed NFMA regulations in their entirety and return to the balanced and accountable forest planning envisioned by the NFMA.


Sincerely,
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