Bill Would Cut Agencies Slack
In Meeting Species Survey Laws

WASHINGTON —(AP)— The Senate is expected to decide this month whether to give federal agencies more leeway on the surveys of rare plants and animals required before logging and other activities are allowed on federal land.

Two federal court decisions this year have halted dozens of timber sales in the South and Pacific Northwest on grounds that federal agencies failed to adequately survey for sensitive species.

A proposal awaiting action on the Senate floor aims to prevent more of the same.

The legislation by Sens. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and other GOP senators, would allow the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to use habitat studies, surveys of similar species and ``the best available scientific and commercial data'' to satisfy the survey requirements.

The agencies would not be required — as the judges have ruled they now are — to conduct individual surveys for each sensitive species in likely habitat areas.

Craig contends the Forest Service lacks the money and trained personnel to conduct such surveys. He says the new proposal would provide protection for the rare species while allowing logging, grazing and recreational activities to continue.

``If you are an advocate of measuring every inch of ground, then you are an advocate of no human activity'' in forests, Craig said.

Environmental activist groups, the Clinton administration and some Democratic senators oppose the plan, setting the stage for a battle in the upper chamber.

Environmental activists claim the Gorton-Craig proposal would encourage federal officials to take short cuts on surveys, thus trampling on sensitive plants and animals for the sake of increased logging.

That could lead to listing of some of these species as threatened or endangered, they say.

``It's only if we do these surveys that we get information as to where the critters are,'' said Doug Heiken of the Oregon Natural Resources Council in Eugene, Ore.

Forest Service and BLM officials are supposed to conduct the surveys to ensure that a proposed project or activity won't harm sensitive species.

U.S. District Court Judge William Dwyer ruled last month in Seattle that federal officials failed to meet survey requirements for 77 rare species such as the red tree vole, which often becomes dinner for the northern spotted owl, and orange cup fungi, which resemble orange peels lying on the forest floor.

(Orange cup fungi? Where are those people who used to snort with derision when critics of the Endangered Species Act warned that it would someday be stretched to include bacteria and fungus? Hmmmmmm? — Ed.)

The judge put 217 million board feet of timber harvests on hold — an amount equal to one-fourth of the total annual harvest on public lands in western Washington, western Oregon and northern California — until a hearing is held and he makes a final decision, probably this fall.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by 13 environmental activist groups. They contend the survey failures violate the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, a Clinton administration document setting rules for national-forest use in western Oregon, western Washington and northern California.

The 11th U.S. Circuit of the Court of Appeals made a similar ruling in Atlanta last February.

The panel halted seven timber sales for 28 million board feet in the Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia, ruling that the Forest Service failed to monitor for species that serve as an indicator of forest health as required by the 1976 National Forest Management Act. The court also said the agency failed to conduct surveys for sensitive species, as required under the Chattahoochee forest-management plan.

The Forest Service then voluntarily suspended an additional 25 Chattahoochee timber sales while it reviews its species-monitoring program.

Gorton and Craig wrote their proposal in response to the Atlanta decision. In June, Gorton inserted the measure into a $14.1 billion appropriations bill for the Interior Department and other federal agencies.

The bill is expected to be one of the first measures taken up when the Senate returns Tuesday from a month-long recess. If the measure becomes law — and its prospects are uncertain — it would go into effect for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

Forest Service officials said they couldn't speculate on how it might affect the court cases in Seattle and Atlanta, but timber-industry officials have high hopes.

The Senate proposal is ``the only reasonable solution to prevent a prolonged gridlock,'' said Jim Geisinger, president of the Northwest Forestry Association based in Portland, Ore.

Craig said he is worried the 11th Circuit ruling will serve as a precedent for other courts, which he contends could bring national forest activities to a halt. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cited the 11th Circuit decision last month in upholding a ban on virtually all logging in the national forests of East Texas, he noted.

Government officials concede the survey requirements are tough. In a hearing before Dwyer, a government attorney said the Forest Service and BLM question whether scientists have the know-how to conduct surveys for nearly half of the 77 species at issue in the Northwest.

Chris Wood, a top aide to Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck, said last week the Forest Service can and must meet all survey requirements.

``We made a commitment to do something and we have to do it,'' he said, referring to the Northwest Forest Plan.

But he said the agency may need to revise its list of sensitive species in the Pacific Northwest — dropping some and adding others — as a result of field experiences.

The Forest Service is working on new procedures for meeting the Northwest Forest Plan survey requirements. Public comment will be sought in February and the agency hopes to have a final draft in June.

Wood said the agency's rule-making process is preferable to the Gorton-Craig approach, which would leave survey decisions to agency officials.

The legislative proposal ``will create division, distrust and will ultimately cause more damage to the agency than it will help us,'' he said.

When the Senate takes up the Interior bill, Sens. Chuck Robb, D-Va., and Max Cleland, D-Ga., expect to offer an amendment striking the Gorton-Craig proposal.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., plans to support that effort.

``Congress shouldn't be in the business of revising environmental laws in appropriations bills every time an agency screws up and doesn't get its work done,'' said Josh Kardon, Wyden's chief of staff.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., hasn't yet taken a position on the Gorton-Craig proposal, though she also is convinced it is not the best way for the region to solve the survey problem, spokeswoman Tovah Ravitz said.

``It's simplistic,'' Ravitz said.