Bush Fire? Fire Bush!

Support for forest-thinning steps up
03/09/03
The Oregonian, Portland, OR pro-timber industry newspaper
JEFF MAPES
With the encouragement of the Bush administration, the timber industry is quietly building a public-relations campaign to promote the president's plan to reduce fire danger by thinning [and clearcutting] public forests [including roadless arias and oldgrowth].
Led by a veteran political consultant from the Portland area, the campaign is looking at techniques ranging from advertising to organizing rallies pushing the president's "healthy forests initiative."
The Bush administration appointee heading the U.S. Forest Service and a top aide to White House political chief Karl Rove met recently in Portland with timber executives to discuss the campaign. It's yet another sign of how closely the Bush administration is working with an industry it regards as a key part of its support base.
"The Bush administration has told people in our industry, 'We need your help,' " said Ray Wilkeson of the Oregon Forest Industries Council, a Salem-based timber lobby group.
Bush announced his forest initiative in August in a Medford speech after flying over the 500,000-acre Biscuit fire then raging in Southern Oregon [an ecosystem in which fire is vital to forest health and which only in the last century, due to fire suppression, has existed with out this element]. A key part of the plan is allowing loggers to take some marketable timber as a way to help pay for forest thinning.
Environmentalists criticize the initiative as a back-door way to increase logging in national forests and say it won't do much to reduce the fire risk.
But the initiative has become the president's chief public-lands priority. He mentioned it during his State of the Union speech in January and has talked frequently about how he works to reduce the fuel load on forested parts of his Texas ranch.
"The fire season on the ground has ended . . . but my personal fire season continues because I'm concerned about the fire the president put under my backside to get this initiative moving," joked Mark Rey, the agriculture undersecretary in charge of the Forest Service. He's a former timber industry lobbyist.
Rey and Barry Jackson, a top aide to Rove, spoke at a Feb. 14 gathering in Portland organized by political consultant Paul Phillips, a former Republican legislator from Tigard.
Rey said he and Jackson spoke about the importance of the forest initiative but did not stay for a discussion of how to put together a public-relations campaign.
"That's up to them to decide how they can best be effective in helping us," Rey said.
Bush administration officials have worked closely with the industry since taking office. Several officials met privately with industry executives in December 2001 at the Aurora headquarters of Columbia Helicopter to talk about changes in forest management. And the industry was a large contributor to Bush's election campaign in 2000.
Participants said the latest meeting attracted about 100 people from a broad spectrum of timber-related industries, including representatives from companies involved in firefighting.
Pledge forms were distributed urging companies to contribute a slice of their sales in the West, up to a maximum of $275,000, to the public-relations campaign.
Phillips said he didn't know how much money would be raised for the campaign, but some participants said there was talk of a multimillion-dollar effort.
Phillips, president of Pac/West Communications in Wilsonville, was chosen by a coalition of timber-support groups to create the campaign. He hired Tim Wigley, who had been executive director of the Oregon Forest Industries Council, to help direct it.
Phillips said the effort would focus on "grass-roots mobilization" in areas of the West where there's high concern about fire danger.
"It's smart for (the administration) to have a group at arm's length and go out and do what they can't do," said Phillips. He added that it's too early to tell the exact focus of his campaign.
However, it's clear that a key part of the debate involves how the issue is framed.
Phillips said the catastrophic fires that swept the West last year not only pose a risk to many communities but are also destroying valuable wilderness.
"The Biscuit fire destroyed more habitat than we could ever bring on line," he said.
Opponents see hidden agenda Environmentalists, who have waged their own public-relations campaign against the president's plan, argue that the administration is primarily interested in getting more timber off public lands.
"They deserve high points for using euphemisms," said Bill Arthur, head of the Sierra Club's Seattle office. "Healthy forests is just a cute phrase for chain-saw health care."
Arthur said the administration should focus on protecting forest zones around communities, and little could be done to fireproof an entire forest. He also disputed the claim that the Biscuit fire would prove to be an environmental disaster.
The Bush administration is already moving to change some regulations to accommodate the president's initiative. And last month Congress approved an amendment allowing the Forest Service to hire private contractors to thin forests in exchange for keeping some marketable timber.
Rey said the administration is looking at the comments gathered on the proposed regulatory changes and considering what additional legislation might be sent to Congress.
Such rhetoric is currently being used to justify clear-cutting of oldgrowth on roadless, public land in the Klamath-Siskiyou bio-region in Southern Oregon/Northern California. Particularly detrimental is the Knobb Timber Sale on the Salmon River, one of the last Wild rivers in California and very important Salmon habitat. Help stop the destruction of our future! For more information, to get involved, or to help out contact the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, kswild.org or the Utopian Tree Pirate’s!!!