WASHINGTON — The Bush administration proposed Friday to let forest managers decide whether to ask wildlife agencies if a planned thinning or controlled burn might harm an endangered or threatened species.
The new procedure could shave months off the time it takes to initiate projects to reduce fire risks or clean forests after fires, officials said. The administration announced the proposal at the same time it unveiled an array of other changes aimed at removing bureaucratic and legal hurdles that it says delay fire-prevention projects.
Environmentalists warned that the proposal involving endangered species would remove an important check on the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management. They and some Democrats in Congress said the administration was trying to increase logging in national forests by avoiding usual environmental reviews and making it harder for citizens and environmental groups to appeal its actions.
Administration officials said the changes would help them triple the acreage they are able to treat annually to avoid forest fires. Government agencies can now treat about 2.5 million acres with thinning projects and controlled burns.
They spend about $400 million a year and complain that more than one-third of it pays for preparing environmental analyses and surmounting procedural barriers such as public appeals and consultations with other agencies.
"We've got to get better at doing this faster and cheaper without losing the quality of the work," said Mark Rey, undersecretary of Agriculture for natural resources and environment.
Under current rules, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service is consulted whenever a Forest Service or BLM project is expected to affect an imperiled animal or plant.
Under the new proposal, Forest Service and BLM officials could choose not to consult a wildlife agency if they decided that their project was "not likely to adversely affect" any endangered or threatened species.
"This will take what has been a meaningful check and balance by wildlife agencies and turn it into a rubber stamp by the Forest Service," said Martin Hayden, a lawyer for Earthjustice, an environmental law firm.
Hayden predicted that under the proposal, consultations with the wildlife agencies on endangered species would be rare.
Environmentalists said the consultations by the wildlife agencies help protect imperiled species.
