Senate uses recent fires to advance forest bill

WASHINGTON - With fires threatening communities in Arizona and New Mexico, a Senate committee considered legislation Thursday that would accelerate projects to cut trees from thick, dense forests to reduce the risks of catastrophic fire.

"The long, hot summer of forest fires has already begun and they're playing themselves out in the states of New Mexico and Arizona," Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said as the Senate Agriculture Committee debated the bill, which is backed by the White House.

The bill would allow federal land managers to accelerate logging and controlled burning on 20-million acres of federal land with the most severe fire risks, either because they have grown thick with flammable brush and trees or because disease or insect infestations have left behind dead, dry timber.

The areas would be exempt from some of the normal environmental reviews. It would also limit administrative appeals and direct judges to expedite court challenges that Republicans say have caused projects to bog down for years.

The changes, said Mark Rey, the Agriculture Department undersecretary in charge of the Forest Service, would allow more money to be devoted to treating the forests and shorten the time before a project is implemented.

The Bush administration has already removed some of the hurdles to forest treatment. Under rules adopted in May, logging on up to 1,000 acres and controlled burns on up to 4,500 acres in at-risk areas could be "categorically excluded" from environmental reviews and administrative appeals.

Together, the bill, which passed the House last month, and the rules implement the bulk of President Bush's Healthy Forest Initiative, which he outlined last summer after the touring a charred Oregon forest.

Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., urging them to pass the bill before Congress recesses in August so the changes can be in place in time to make a difference in next year's fire season. The administration estimates that 190-million acres of federal land are at heightened risk for a severe wildfire.

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