By Mike Soraghan
Denver Post

Denver Post Washington Bureau
Sunday, April 27, 2003

WASHINGTON - House Republicans on Friday re-ignited the fight over how to prevent catastrophic forest fires, rolling out their plans to cut back environmental regulation and allow more logging of national forests. The logging is needed, they say, to thin the forest of dense undergrowth that fuels fires like last year's Hayman fire, the largest in Colorado history."Until we untie the tangled knot of bureaucratic red tape that binds the hands of our land managers, massive fires and insect infestations will continue to lay waste to some of America's most cherished places," said U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis, the Grand Junction Republican who is the House's leader on forestry issues.The House Resources Committee is expected to send the bill to the House floor this week without a hearing. Democrats were angered that the Republicans have fast-tracked a controversial overhaul of environmental laws without allowing opponents to testify at a hearing."It is an injustice to forest policy and to stakeholders to not be heard on this important topic," said Rep. George Miller of California, the senior Democrat on the resources panel.The Republican plan calls for expedited procedures to get thinning done on 20 million acres of forestland, streamlines the review process for forest thinning and limits the ability to permanently stop such projects in court.It's a follow-up to forest fire legislation that stalled last year, when attempts failed to build a bipartisan consensus on similar legislation.This year, Republicans don't need to be as concerned about the objections of environmentalists because Democrats no longer control the Senate. But the plan still faces threats from moderate Republicans from the Northeast who often side with environmentalists, and it is vulnerable to a filibuster in the Senate.The legislation grew out of last year's devastating fire season, in which three states had their largest-ever fires. A consensus grew quickly that the 190 million acres of public land at high risk of catastrophic fire needed to be thinned, but the agreement quickly fell apart over how to do it.President Bush called for relaxing environmental rules and offering some large, old-growth trees to loggers as an incentive to clear forests. Democrats and environmentalists said more money should be put into thinning, which should be targeted near cities and communities.Republicans did manage to pass a plan essentially privatizing management of thousands of acres of forestland by turning it over to private groups and companies for thinning.Bush's budget for the coming fiscal year offers almost no extra money for forest thinning, but administration officials say they'll speed up the program with the efficiencies gained from cutting back on environmental reviews.