Logging Decision Upheld

A Bush administration official Monday upheld a decision to boost logging in Sierra Nevada national forests.

In a five-paragraph decision, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey left unchanged guidelines that will triple current logging levels on the range’s 11.5 million acres of national forest.

The Sierra forests have been the scene of a long, bitter fight for more than a decade. The Clinton administration slashed timber cutting and increased wildlife protections.

Officials argued that the steps were necessary to reverse damage done by a century of grazing, logging of most of the range’s large, old trees and suppression of the natural cycle of wildfires.

The Bush administration dropped many of the Clinton-era restrictions, saying they made it impossible for managers to adequately thin the forests of dense growth that fuel destructive blazes.

Conservationists and California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer have sued to block the Bush changes, saying they will harm the environment, while the California Forestry Assn., a timber industry group, has also sued, on the grounds that the Bush revisions do not increase logging enough.

The various groups had little to say about Rey’s decision, which his office issued without comment.

A former timber industry lobbyist, Rey had wide discretion to order further revisions in the plan. But after three months of review, he chose to let it stand.

“We are very pleased here in California, and will continue to implement the decision,” said regional Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes.