Shift Would Let Firm Pave Logging Roads
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 4, 2009; Page A02
LOS ANGELES -- The Bush administration appears poised to push through a change in U.S. Forest Service agreements that would make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions.
Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who heads the Forest Service, last week signaled his intent to formalize the controversial change before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. As a candidate, Obama campaigned against the measure in Montana, where local governments have complained of being blindsided by Rey's negotiating the policy shift behind closed doors with the nation's largest private landowner.
The shift is technical but has large implications. It would allow Plum Creek Timber to pave roads through Forest Service land. For decades, such roads were little more than trails used by logging trucks to reach timber stands.
But as Plum Creek has moved into the real estate business, paving those roads became a necessary prelude to opening vast tracts of the company's 8 million acres to the vacation homes that are transforming landscapes across the West.
Monday, January 5, 2009
U.S. forest policy is set to change, aiding developer
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A piece of good news:
Timber company drops road deal with Forest Service
By SUSAN GALLAGHER, Associated Press Writer
HELENA, Mont. – The nation's largest owner of timberland disclosed Monday that it will no longer pursue changes in agreements governing its use of U.S. Forest Service roads — changes that critics complained could transform forests into housing subdivisions.
Critics of the proposed changes had included President-elect Barack Obama and Montana's junior senator.
Changes in the agreements would benefit the public, but "given the lack of receptivity, we have decided not to go forward," Plum Creek Timber Co. Chief Executive Officer Rick Holley wrote in a letter to Missoula County, which opposed altering the agreements.
Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey indicated as recently as last week that the changes negotiated privately by the Forest Service and Plum Creek would become final before he leaves office when the Bush administration ends this month.
Rey, a former lobbyist for the timber industry, said the company's decision is "not good news for the federal government or the public at large." He had maintained the changes secured new benefits for the government rather than for Plum Creek.
Rey declined to comment further on Monday.
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