WASHINGTON — President Clinton will propose rules today that could more than double the wilderness land protected from mining, logging and other development by banning the building of roads in national forests, White House officials said Tuesday.
From New Hampshire's White Mountains to California's Sierra Nevada range, from the southern Appalachians to the Pacific Northwest and possibly to Alaska's Tongass National Forest, as much as 54 million acres--some two-thirds of the nation's still-pristine forests--could be put off-limits to all but hikers, cross-country skiers and boaters.
Environmentalists praised the proposal as one of the federal government's most far-reaching conservation efforts in decades. Clinton plans to announce it during a visit today to the George Washington National Forest in the Shenandoah Mountains.
The president's action initiates a complicated government process that faces many potential obstacles. The U.S. Forest Service will have to assess the ultimate impact of the ban on road construction in areas currently without roads, which are necessary for logging and mining. The process is also designed to answer this question: Do the public lands of the U.S. Forest Service have greater value as wilderness or as suppliers of timber and minerals?
The timber industry said that Clinton's announcement is the first step toward closing the national forests to all logging--and to anyone who needs a road to reach a destination deep in the woods.
"This will shut us out of the forest indefinitely and all the bikers, hikers and boaters will come with us," said Michael Klein, a spokesman for the American Forest & Paper Assn. "It's a very elitist national forest."
And western Republican lawmakers were in full battle gear Tuesday. Raising objections before today's announcement, 38 Republicans members of the Senate and House sent a letter to Michael P. Dombeck, chief of the U.S. Forest Service, telling him: "We cannot stand by idly and watch our constituents lose the right to travel on the land they own."
But the president's proposal would ban road-building only in designated regions, many of which are already subject to a moratorium. It would not ban access on foot.
The proposed rule would be issued next spring by the Forest Service and a period of public comment would follow. It could be made permanent in late 2000 in the final weeks of Clinton's term. Although not out of character for Clinton, the policy would be a significant element in his environmental legacy.
