Environmentalists Pitch Compromise on Logging Limit

WASHINGTON — A dozen environmental groups proposed Friday to resume limited logging of Northwest timber that has been off limits under a court order protecting the northern spotted owl.

They were responding to a Clinton Administration proposal to log even more timber, and their compromise offer amounted to only 60% of the renewed logging sought by the Administration.

“We’re still negotiating right now,” said Tom Amontree, spokesman for Assistant Agriculture Secretary Jim Lyons, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service.

Timber industry and labor leaders said the offer was unacceptable.

“This so-called ‘compromise’ is an insult,” said Mike Draper, executive secretary of the Western Council of Industrial Workers in Portland, Ore. “This small amount of timber will do little to provide certainty to our members.”

The environmental groups, which won the court injunction in 1991, agreed that logging 83 million board-feet of timber on federal lands should be permitted, according to a statement from the groups. The Administration had sought to log 137 million board-feet.