DeFazio Plan to Protect Old Growth and Create Jobs
Congressman Peter DeFazio (D, OR) of the 4th Congressional District (where I live) has sent me personally (along with a few hundred thousand other people at taxpayers expense) a mailer with a statement about federal forests. I post it here in full:
I opposed former President Clinton’s Northwest Forest Plan in 1994. I was convinced it would not provide certainty in timber supply, and would not protect the small amount of remaining old growth. At that time, I proposed a compromise solution to provide a predictable supply of timber for local mills and protect the remaining old growth. However, my compromise was opposed by the timber industry and the environmental community.
I predicted the Northwest Forest Plan would fail, and it has. Revenues from timber harvests continue to decline, forcing rural communities to eliminate services. Uncertain timber supplies threaten forest and mill jobs. Old growth forests are still at risk and forest health continues to decline.
I have refined my original proposal with input from the timber industry, environmental groups, county commissioners, and forestry experts. I am working to get support for this compromise legislation. The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management estimate there are more than 10 million acres of forest that need to be thinned, which would produce billions of board feet of timber. My plan would direct the agencies to thin those acres for forest health. Increased logging will generate needed revenues for county governments and bring jobs to the region.
My plan for responsible forest management will succeed where the Northwest Forest Plan failed because it thins overstocked and fire-prone forests rather than logging old growth forests. My proposal would produce at least twice the timber volume currently provided by the Northwest Forest Plan.
We need sustainable forest management now for the health of Oregon workers, communities, and the environment.
Rep. Peter A. DeFazio
DeFazio’s original plan called for thinning in young-growth stands, with set-aside for all old-growth in No Touch, Let-It-Burn zones. This was in essence the Northwest Forest Plan, and Peter’s modifications were trivial. Without stewardship, old-growth forests become overgrown with thickets of younger trees and then explode into stand-replacing fires that kill all the trees, owls, etc. And that is exactly what has happened, and is the crux of the failure of the Northwest Forest Plan.
However, we all want to see his new refined plan. So I called his office and they admitted they don’t actually have one at this time. But it could be in preparation. If they do come up with a plan, I’ll be the first to know, allegedly. Then I will post it and we can see what it says.
Without prejudging Peter’s new revised amorphous plan too much, though, I must repeat a key line:
My plan for responsible forest management will succeed where the Northwest Forest Plan failed because it thins overstocked and fire-prone forests rather than logging old growth forests.
The problem with that statement is that thinning is logging and our old-growth forests need it because they are overstocked and fire-prone. (By the way, it’s a scientific consensus on that point. The debate is over.)
All signs point to a rehash of the mysterious plan that Peter pontificates about every two years during his election campaign, and that immediately thereafter fades back into the shadows; Symbolism in the Total Absence of Substance.
However, if Peter does have a document that purports to be a plan, then we can use that, and go from there. If he does come up with one, we’ll be the first to know, allegedly.
