Democoder,
For all your bluster about going directly to “the source†and reading things “unfilteredâ€, you sure do miss a lot. Why did it take me so long to respond? Because I read through the entire document, top to bottom. It’s taken me two days to get through it because of all the legal mumbo jumbo and double speak (god what a headache), jumping back and forth from referenced sections and sub sections to get the full picture, yet
you somehow miraculously read through it all in an hour in order to respond to me? :?
You talk about “anti-Bush†people and the non-rigorous research into legislation. And yet you’ve made assertion after assertion after assertion that is patently incorrect and shows only a mere glance at the top level of the legalities involved in this piece of legislation.
You talk about me taking the Sierra Club or Indymedia at face value and never go read the source material myself. Well, it appears that what I stated about the Healthy Forests Initiative was actually quite correct. And for your information, the first, and last, time I had been to the Sierra Club website was when I was getting that extinction information for Joe, a few days ago. I hadn’t read anything that the Sierra Club wrote regarding the Healthy Forests Initiative until today, and the only reason I did that was to see what all your hubbub was about. And I can’t even recall the last time I read Indymedia, but of course I’m a diehard subscriber and donater, and hell I even organize Bake Sales and Rallies for them because of my opinions.
Of course, I’m the one dismissing other points of view immediately and not reading legislation for myself, and coming to conclusions that are obvious bs. You certainly aren’t doing that DemoCoder. No, not you.
But anyways, enough of the sarcasm and on to the meat of the legislation:
Section 102(a):
The Secretary can authorize "fuel reduction" projects on federal land if it meets the following requirements:
- 1) The Federal Land is a wildland-urban junction, i.e. where city and forest meet.
2 and 3) The Forest is in proximity to a Water Supply System or a Stream that feeds the System, such that a forest fire would reduce the water quality going to residents.
4) The trees on the Federal land has an epidemic of disease or insect pests that could spread to the rest of the forest.
Proximity is defined in
Section 103(d)(2) as 1.5 miles from the boundary of the community.
I agree with the first 4. However, #5 is where the red flags are raised.
- 5) If the requirements for 1-4 are not met, i.e. the forest is nowhere near a city or some other form of human habitat and there is no disease, then "fuel reduction" can still occur if:
[list:083870ff13]a) Natural Fire is found to be required by the life living in the forest (pine trees for instance germinate in the presence of high heat from fire)
- b) Natural Fire is found to be a danger to the life living in the forest that happens to be a threatened species.
[/list:u:083870ff13]
Well gee, those two "requirements" would put all of the forests open to logging of the United States "at risk". Somewhere, there is life in the forest that requires fire in order to live. Somewhere, there is endangered life in the forest that would be destroyed by fire.
As I said before, this gives the logging industry impunity to log wherever they wish as long as it's covered by one of those statutes. And as you can see, particularly with #5, they are vague enough to where all of the forests can be logged.
Section 102(c):
It states that not more than a total 20 Million acres of Federal Land can be treated under authorized hazardous reduction projects. However, it does not state how long that lasts. Is it for concurrent projects only, i.e. 20 Million acres can be developed at any one time, and if 5 Million acres comes free because a company is done, another company can fill up that quota? Is it on a yearly basis, i.e. only 20 Million for a particular year? This is not stated in the document anywhere.
At any rate, 4% of all forest land can be cleared for "fuel reduction" projects, and it’s not clear whether that’s for a set time frame like a year, or if it can be ongoing, just as long as current projects do not go over that 20 Million limit.
Section 102(d):
Instances where forest cannot be removed:
- a) If it's part of the National Wildnerness Preservation System. That is 2 Million Acres. Here are the stats of the entire federal forest land system:
[list:083870ff13]a. 744 Million Acres Total Federal Forests (Forest, Prairie and Grasslands)
- b. 501 Million Acres Total Forest Land
[list:083870ff13]i. 2 Million are reserved by the National Wilderness Preservation System
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- c. 244 Million remaining Acres are Prairie and Grasslands that are useless to Logging Companies
- d. 499 Million Acres of Forest in total qualify for “fuel reductionâ€.
b) If the President or Congress cordons it off.
c) If it’s a Wilderness Study Area, i.e. an area where the land is being studied for Wilderness “suitabilityâ€. [/list:u:083870ff13]
In short, will logging companies be able to log anywhere they want? Yes.
Btw, Old Trees can be removed Democoder:
Section 102(e)(2):
In carrying out a covered project, the Secretary shall fully maintain, or contribute toward the restoration of, the structure and composition of old growth stands according to pre-fire suppression old growth conditions characteristic of the forest type, taking into account the contribution of the stand to landscape fire adaptation and watershed health, and retaining the large trees contributing to old growth.
It’s saying that companies can log as long as they put the trees back the way they were. Of course, no one knows how an old tree would respond to being uprooted from its natural soil and then placed back.
Section 102(e)(3):
Projects sent for review:
A and B) If the management direction for an old growth stand was established before, on or after December 15, 1993, the Secretary has to meet the requirements laid out in Section 102(e).2, i.e. what I quoted above.
This means that companies can log as long as they put any “old trees†back when they’re done. Of course who knows how long that can take, as well as how well the old trees would fare after being dug out of the earth.
Section 102(e)(4):
1 and 2) Review of the project is to take into account any relevant scientific information made available since the start of the project, or if there was scientific information that the secretary did not take into consideration when originally giving the go ahead for the project.
Of course, this doesn’t state that the Secretary has to do anything to stop the project from going forth. However, when the appointed Secretaries that deal with the Environment are all heavily “Pro-Business,†it does not lead one to think that they will choose the Spotted Newt over John Q. Timber Company.
Section 102(f):
Logging can occur if the trees to be removed are largely small diameter trees, i.e. those most susceptible to burning all the way through to the core. However, “small diameter†is not defined in this document, which of course leads it up to someone’s interpretation. Who might that be? The logging companies? The Secretary? A random scientist or textbook? The EPA? Who?
It states that logging can occur if it maximizes the retention of large trees, as appropriate for the forest type, to the extent that the trees promote fire-resilient stands. Again, who determines this? It is not defined in this document, and leads one to ask the question of who is really defining what is a “good†tree and what is a “bad†tree that is ripe for logging.
Section 103:
The Secretary shall consider recommendations that are made by at-risk communities that have developed community wildfire protection plans. It makes no mention that the communities in question have the power to “veto†the proposed logging, or that the Secretary
has to do what the community wants before approving the logging.
As has been shown by Christy Todd Whitman’s term as the head of the EPA, the EPA has no power in these matters and can be easily overruled by the Secretary or the President.
There is a ray of hope however, in subsection (d)(2)(b). In allocating funding under this paragraph, the Secretary
should (but is not compelled to), to the maximum extent practicable (a very nebulous phrase and open to much “interpretationâ€), give priority to communities that have adopted a community wildfire protection plan or have taken proactive measures to encourage willing property owners to reduce fire risk on private property.
Section 104(a) – (c):
The Secretary looks at what would occur if logging/prescribed burns were allowed vs. if nothing occurred, and documents these. The question of course is, why is this even a talking point to you? This exists under the law before the Healthy Forest Initiative was created, so it’s not like it’s something new that this law brings to the table.
Something interesting however, is that if multiple alternatives are proposed, the Secretary has
sole discretion to decide which one gets chosen. All that is required is a list of reasons, which of course can be bs’d anyway. So what does this tell a community that offers up an alternative? Oh sure, we’ll listen to you, but we like John Q. Timber’s recommendation better, so I’m going to choose that one, and you have absolutely no say. Yea. Moving along.
Section 104(d):
1) The Secretary is not required to study, develop, or describe more than the proposed agency action and 1 alternative in the environmental assessment. So if that happens to be the Logging company and a Prescribed Burn company, the Secretary is not required to look at anything else, as shown in Section 103, which I spoke about above. Don’t you just love that circuitous legalese that provides such large loopholes for companies to jump through?
2) If the proximity of the Logging/Prescribed Burn to the community is greater than 1.5 miles, then the Seretary is not required to study, develop, or describe any alternative to the proposed agency action in the environmental assessment department.
What does this mean? Companies can give their plan to the Secretary and not have to worry about “meddlesome†townspeople afraid of what the logging will do to their backyards. And of course we trust the Logging Companies to do what’s right and not worry about the bottom line at all.
3) This is merely repeating what was stated in
Section 104(c). If the Secretary decides not to use the community’s recommendation regarding the general location and methods of treatment (logging and/or prescribed burn), the Secretary shall evaluate the recommendations as an alternative to the proposed agency action, i.e. what the Logging Companies proposed. Of course this is rather circuitous. The Secretary declines to use the community’s proposal, but then must review the community’s proposal as an alternative, even after the community submitted their proposal as an alternative in the first place as mentioned in
Section 104(d)? God I love legal speak.
Section 104(e) – (g):
The Secretary is required to give public notice of each authorized “fuel reduction†project, as well as convene in a public meeting with the affected communities, providing advance notice of location, date, and time of the meeting. What is so special about this that you needed to bring it up as a talking point? It mentions nothing about the community necessarily having any power to do anything.
This just sounds like “Oh sure, we’ll hear you. Doesn’t mean we’ll necessarily listen.â€
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There is much more to this legislation than just these particular talking points that I’ve brought up. What is the point of all this? This Administration has enacted many pieces of legislation that on the face of it look like they are doing a world of good, when in fact when you examine the underpinnings of what’s being said, you find out that there is a very clever bait and switch going on.
The Clear Skies Initiative that Russ referred to earlier in this thread is a prime example. On the face of it, it seems to offer a clear path to cleaner air and better quality. Unfortunately when you delve beneath the surface, you notice that it actually raises the current reduction requirement from 5-15 tons by 2008 to 26 tons by 2010. That’s a 90% reduction from current output under current law by 2008, being changed to a 45% reduction by 2010 when compared to current output under current law. It also opens up the ability to “trade†Mercury, even though the deleterious effects of Mercury are
well known in the scientific community, especially to pregnant women.
It also fails to list Carbon Monoxide as a Greenhouse gas, freeing it from all regulation in our industries, as well as the Carbon Monoxide that gets spewed by our automobiles. That was simply an egregious oversight.
The “No Child Left Behind†Act has remained woefully under-funded and an unmitigated disaster, yet the Administration will claim credit for “doing something.†We’ve had our disagreements over the recent Medicare Prescription Bill and the shortcomings of it, so I don’t even think I need to go there. Yet of course, that will be touted as a success. Homeland Security to this day remains woefully under-funded, especially in aid to the states. Port Security is abysmal, as is Border Security, especially with Mexico. Though to be fair, the border with Canada isn’t much better.
Of course there’s the mother of all bait and switch maneuvers, i.e. Weapons of Mass Destruction to We Needed To Free A People From A Ruthless Dictator. Yea……
So yes, when it comes down to it, when I look at what the administration does, I look with a very large grain of salt attached, given the history of this administration with “bait and switch†tactics.
