"Their justification is that the public can comment on individual projects, but they've already issued policies that cut out public comment on many projects. All the pieces fit together," said Amy Mall, forest policy specialist for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Representatives of the timber industry and several Western politicians applauded the rule changes, saying they were overdue.
Michael Goergen, executive vice president of the Society of American Foresters, said the "rules could be the difference in getting managers out from behind their desks and into the forest." Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) called the new regulations "a great Christmas present for our national forests and the people who depend on them."
"This new rule involves the public from start to finish, but no one has to worry about dying of old age in the interim. In too many Western states, forest planning became so convoluted under the old rule that the process was taking 10 to 15 years to complete. That's an absurd tangle of pointless red tape," Domenici said.
But House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco called the new regulations "an insult to every American who cares about our national forests" and maintained they would "increase the exploitation of our natural resources by private companies without ensuring the survival of the forests for future generations."
Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the Forest Service, is a former lobbyist for the timber industry, which threw its political support overwhelmingly toward Republicans in the last election cycle, donating more than $1.7 million to GOP candidates and party committees and just $380,000 to Democrats, according to data compiled by Dwight L. Morris & Associates, a Virginia firm that tracks campaign contributions.
Contributors identifying themselves as working for the timber industry gave $268,552 to the Republican National Committee and another $163,321 to President Bush, records show.
Three of Bush's elite fundraisers were also top timber executives: W. Henson Moore, chief of the American Forest and Paper Assn., the industry's trade group; Otis B. Ingram III, president of a Georgia lumber company; and Peter Secchia, chairman of Universal Forest Products.
Among the first donors to Bush's 2005 inaugural committee was International Paper Co., which donated $100,000 to help pay for the festivities.
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From Oregon to Mexico
California's 18 national forests run the length of the state, covering 20 million acres, or a fifth of the state's land mass.
National forests in California
* Angeles
* Cleveland
* Eldorado
* Inyo
* Klamath
* Lake Tahoe Basin
* Lassen
* Los Padres
* Mendocino
* Modoc
* Plumas
* San Bernardino
* Sequoia
* Shasta-Trinity
* Sierra
* Six Rivers
* Stanislaus
* Tahoe
