Jay Inslee: Washington's 1st Congressional District
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Final Day to Submit Public Comments on Roadless Rule
15 November 2004
Today marks the final day of the extended public comment period on the Bush administration's proposal to repeal the widely popular 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, and to instead permit logging and road-building in 585 million acres of our pristine national forests.
Said U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, "This administration should be cutting down our nations deficit instead of cutting down our nations forests. The overwhelming public response to the administrations terrible proposal to remove protections over roadless areas shows how strongly citizens care about protecting our national forests. In the face of this public demonstration of support for our forests, the Bush administration should immediately drop its unpopular proposal. Our national forests belong to the American people, and the Bush administration must not jeopardize these jewels by allowing individual governors to forego protection of national forest areas that happen to be within that governors state. The Bush administrations plans to force taxpayers to subsidize timber company road building in our national forests is simply outrageous."
Background:
In July 2004, the Bush Administration issued a new proposal that undermines the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The proposal would undermine the protection of 58.5 million acres of wild and pristine national forests by forcing each governor to request that the federal government to prevent road-building in roadless areas in that governor's state, whereas as before this protection was automatic. The Bush proposal also undermines the federal government's ability to oversee roadless areas on federal lands because it would exempt individual governors from the Roadless Rule.
As the Ranking Democrat on the House Resources Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, Inslee has worked to uphold the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Last year Inslee introduced an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill that would have preserved the Roadless Rule through FY2004. The Inslee amendment, which received 185 votes, twenty of which were cast by Republicans, would have prohibited the administration from pursuing these changes.