Congressman Wants To Know
USFS Links To Green Groups

PHOENIX — U.S. House Resources Committee chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, wants to know just who among Forest Service bureaucrats is playing footsie with anti-grazing extremists.

Young has asked a Forest Service administrator whether any employees in the Southwest are members of or have links to certain environmental activist groups.

The request follows a secret Forest Service agreement with two activist groups that limits grazing in 11 Arizona and New Mexico national forests.

Young detailed 19 demands in a July 28 letter to Eleanor S. Towns, the Southwest regional Forest Service director based in Albuquerque. He set an Aug. 15 deadline for her response.

Young's letter asks for names and professional backgrounds of every Forest Service or Department of Agriculture employee involved in litigation that was the subject of the anti-grazing deal. It also asks for a list of those who approved the settlement and the names of those who briefed or participated in meetings on the matter.

He asked as well whether the Forest Service is aware of any employees who are involved in or who contribute money to activist groups including the Santa Fe, N.M.-based Forest Guardians, the Tucson-based Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, The Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society.

Steve Hansen, a spokesman for Young's committee, said an investigation has been opened into allegations that federal employees illegally leaked federal documents to the groups. He declined to characterize the investigation further.

Activists, predictably, were up in arms over Young’s request.

"This guy (Young) is on his soapbox trying to make the Forest Service cower," complained Peter Galvin, a spokesman for the Southwest Center. "I hope the civil servants do not cave in to this gross abuse of power."

Sam Hitt, president of Forest Guardians, was even more theatrical. "I think Don Young is the Joe McCarthy of the 1990s," said Hitt. "Anyone who stands up for the environment, Don Young brings to his knees."

In response to Hitt's comment, Hansen said, "If he is insinuating that environmentalists are like Communists ... I have no control over his thinking process. But it's pretty clear that anybody ... who has done nothing wrong here is sleeping fine tonight."

The Forest Service agreed earlier this year to limit cattle grazing in the 11 Arizona and New Mexico national forests to settle a Southwest Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit.

The agreements with the Southwest Center and Forest Guardians, which filed a similar lawsuit, would keep cattle away from 330 miles of streams on 80 grazing allotments.

Affected ranchers were not consulted, and both houses of Congress are looking into the propriety and legality of the one-sided deal.

Mary Zabinski, a spokeswoman for Towns, said she has not yet responded to Young, and she indicated that Towns plans to defy the Congressman’s request.

"Ms. Towns doesn't keep tabs on who in the agency belongs to what organizations," Zabinski said late last week. "She believes employees' personal lives are their own.

"We're talking to our attorneys," Zabinski added.