No sign of the bill or a press release on Wyden’s site, yet, but The Oregonian has a link to the release. Excerpt:

Wyden’s legislation, called The Oregon and California Land Grant Act of 2013, amends the
original Oregon and California Lands Act passed in 1937. Compared to the last ten years it
would roughly double timber harvests on O&C lands for decades to come. At the same time, the
bill would permanently protect old growth trees, ensure habitat for sensitive species, and put in
place strong safeguards for drinking water and fisheries.

The legislation requires the Secretary of the Interior to provide a sustained yield of timber in
forestry emphasis areas, while taking the most controversial harvests off the table, ensuring that
old growth stands in moist forests currently over 120 years old and trees over 150 years old
across the O&C landscape cannot be harvested.

While keeping the O&C lands under the protection of federal environmental laws, the bill
proposes streamlining the environmental review of timber sales by:

· Improving timelines for environmental and judicial reviews;
· Eliminating the individual environmental impact statements for each timber sale and replacing
them with two large-scale environmental impact statements – one each for dry and moist forests
– covering 10 years of timber sales;
· Requiring better coordination between federal agencies during environmental reviews; and
· Requiring upfront studies of areas to prioritize treatments.

The bill would also permanently protect nearly a million acres of conservations areas that
would be managed for the benefit of old growth trees, native wildlife, recreation and tourism.
In the conservation areas, road building would be limited and mining prohibited. Timber
harvests would be limited to improving habitat and forest health.

Finally, the bill provides new ways to consolidate land ownership and reduce the
checkerboard of public and private lands across Western Oregon.

Senator Wyden will introduce companion legislation to this bill that will extend long term
funding to the counties which currently receive PILT, SRS, and similar payments, ensuring that
communities who produce energy, minerals and timber and other resources that benefit the entire
country are fairly compensated for the local impacts of that work. The federal government owes
these communities, and other resource producing communities too much to allow county
payments to end.

###

Excerpt from press release from The American Forest Resource Council, Associated Oregon Loggers, Douglas Timber Operators and Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association:

“At first glance, it appears that Senator Wyden’s proposal falls short of providing our communities the level of legal certainty, jobs, and county revenues they deserve and have been promised,” said Partin. “While it won’t be easy, we look forward to working with Senator Wyden and the entire Oregon delegation to find a comprehensive and permanent solution. Our communities absolutely need meaningful reforms to eliminate the broken policies that have resulted in endless paralysis and failed both Oregon and our federal forests for the past twenty years.”

Received a press release today (copied below) about an independent advisory committee’s “recommendations for the implementation of the U.S. Forest Service’s 2012 Planning Rule.” The release doesn’t say much about those recommendations. Here’s a more direct link to the committee’s report:

http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/planningrule/home/?cid=stelprdb5346267

A transmittal letter says “The committee spent the last year carefully reviewing, learning and building consensus recommendations on revisions to the draft directives (manual and handbook) in a stepwise fashion.”

Looks like there’s enough in the committee’s work for a year’s worth of blog posts. Here are a couple of items from the transmittal letter:

• Desired Conditions and Natural Range of Variation (NRV): Both terms were defined to
improve clarity. Ensure forests understand that managing for NRV is not required by the
planning rule, and that forests can manage for desired conditions outside the NRV

• Species Of Conservation Concern (SCC): The draft directives are ambiguous as to when
how, and under what process, identified SCCs become determined SCCs. Efficiency and
efficacy would be greatly enhanced by 1) clarifying the timing of SCC identification, 2)
stressing the regional forester SCC determination be made early, clarifying the role of
responsible officials and regional foresters in SCC identification and determination; 3)
directing the regional forester to provide public access to the list of determined SCCs, and
(4) encouraging that the expertise of local, state and Tribal agency expertise is utilized in
identifying SCC.

Lots more to digest.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

An essay by Taylor Smith on Anthony Watts’ Watts Up With That? blog caught my attention: “EPA ‘Public Listening Session’ Turns Into Sierra Club Talking Session.”

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/20/epa-public-listening-session-turns-into-sierra-club-talking-session/#more-97789

An excerpt:

Although the EPA hearing yielded the same mix of speakers, this time I noticed they were all wearing green Sierra Club “Climate Action Now” shirts.

The reason for this, I would later learn, was that the Sierra Club had mobilized hundreds of activists, transported them via bus (I presume of the fossil-fuel powered kind), prepped their testimonies the night before, and completely dominated the morning speaker slots. (There were several coal industry representatives in the morning, and a few other dissenters, including Heartland Policy Adviser Paul Driessen, who covered his experience here). By the afternoon, the Sierra Club had completely monopolized the speaking time (at least in the room I was in).

After the hearing, everyone was invited to a “Climate Social”  held at the Sierra Club’s office  with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon, and Illinois state Sen. Michael Frerichs.

Now maybe it’s just me, but I felt a slight level of discomfort when I saw a single organization dominate a “public” hearing in the way that they did. I don’t care what the organization is or what they say they stand for, because if their 2011 listed revenue is over $97 million, then you know not all of it could have fallen in their laps from heaven.

The session concerned EPA carbon regulations, but I have attended forestry-oriented public meetings and listening sessions at which most, if not all, attendees seemed to represent the same position, if not the same organization. I’ve been to others at which everyone seemed independent. In this case, the Sierra Club didn’t do anything wrong; I’ll bet that industry groups have done the same at hearings on various issues. It’s a bit like asking its members to sign a form letter and e-mail it to an agency. But I’m curious about the effect of “packing” public meetings like this. Agencies these days often count and report the number of “original” letters and form letters for project or plan proposals. Do agencies somehow give more or less weight to public comments from attendees organized or transported by a single group?

Note that Driessen was one of the speakers and he certainly wasn’t wearing a Sierra Club shirt. So, Smith was incorrect — they were not “all wearing green Sierra Club “Climate Action Now” shirts.” The photo on the blog shows a lot of those green shirts in the audience.

A comment on opposition to another USFS project. I don’t know anything about this project except from the Decision Memo, here:

http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/ltbmu/landmanagement/projects/?cid=stelprdb5314648

This is a 100-acre fuels-reduction project. There are ~60 cabins and outbuildings within the project area.

Would this project affect the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog? I don’t know. However, having worked on the El Dorado, just over the hill from this project, and having fought fire in that area, including in the adjacent Desolation Wilderness, I disagree with the biologist’s opinion that “no material threat of wildfire exists at all.”

The DM says:

“In project treatment areas the landscape would shift from Fire Regime Condition Class 2 and 3, toward 1 and 2, improving the overall resiliency of the forest to large scale disturbances.”

Article below from Greenwire. A Sacramento Bee article, which mentions that the biologist’s family “has owned a cabin for three generations,” is here:

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/17/5919990/unr-prof-lawsuit-seeks-to-block.html

Nev. professor sues Forest Service over logging proposal

Published: Monday, November 18, 2013

A biologist has filed suit against the Forest Service for its plans to log above Lake Tahoe.

The agency is ignoring its own analysis of the wildfire risk in the high-altitude, old-growth forests near Echo Lakes, said Dennis Murphy, a biology professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. The region is located about 8 miles southwest of South Lake Tahoe, Calif.

“Cutting activities on the Pacific Crest Trail/Tahoe Rim Trail in the scenic Lake Tahoe Basin are occurring where no material threat of wildfire exists at all,” said Murphy, who has done research for the agency for more than a decade.

He argues that the logging threatens the survival of the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog, which is being considered for endangered species protections.

“In its zeal to implement the project, the Forest Service has disregarded these facts and is violating procedures of the National Environmental Policy Act by blazing ahead,” according to the lawsuit filed earlier this month.

Murphy’s lawyer, Paul Weiland, last week filed a motion seeking a temporary restraining order to suspend logging operations. But U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell denied the request, saying Murphy should have made a request earlier if it was an emergency (Scott Sonner, AP/Sacramento Bee, Nov. 17). — JE

Here’s a project getting some attention that isn’t in the West: the Courthouse Creek Project, on the Pisgah Ranger District, Pisgah National Forest.

News article in the Black Mountian News yesterday:

Groups appeal to stop Courthouse Creek logging project

Excerpts:

“This is the worst possible place for an old-school logging project,” said D.J. Gerken, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “The views from the Blue Ridge Parkway and Devil’s Courthouse are worth far more than the timber this project will generate.”

The logging, which could begin as early as 2015, would include 30 harvest sites that range in size from 4 to 34 acres, dispersed across the 7,000-acre Courthouse Creek area. The project would take four to five years and harvest about 6 percent of the trees in the Courthouse Creek area.

and:

“The Forest Service promised to manage this area as intact, mature forest for black bear,” said Ben Prater of Wild South. “The Forest Service bills this timber sale as a restoration project — but the pristine habitat in this area doesn’t need restoring; it needs to be protected.”

The appeal was filed on behalf of the Wilderness Society, Wild South, and Western North Carolina Alliance.

OK, so I took a look at the EA, which is here:

http://www.fs.usda.gov/projects/nfsnc/landmanagement/projects

There are 10 items listed under Purpose and Need for Action. This one seems to be the one the groups object to:

4) There is a need to develop between 64-192 acres of early successional habitat in MA 3B and up to 324 acres of early successional habitat in MAs 4A and 4D (Forest Plan, page III-31). There is currently no managed 0-10 year age class habitat in MAs 3B, 4A, and 4D in the AA. Two-age and group selection harvests would provide this needed habitat.

Under the preferred alternative, the Pisgah would take these actions:

In stands harvested with a two-age prescription, an average minimum of 20ft2/acre residual basal area would be left in a non-uniform distribution, where some trees are clumped and others are scattered as individuals. Preferred leave trees are hickory species, white oak, and chestnut.

In stands harvested with a group selection prescription, small openings of 0.2 to 1.0 acres would be harvested, distributed over a stand size area, with the intent to establish three or more distinct age-classes within a prescribed rotation.

Some of these stands “would be harvested with the objective to improve golden-winged warbler habitat and would be permanently maintained as shrub habitat. The target basal area for these units would be 20 to 40 ft2 basal area per acre.”

I can’t imagine these activities would bother black bears in the least.

The EA also note that “Many of the proposed activities in the Courthouse Creek analysis area correspond to the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forest Restoration Focus Areas, which were developed collaboratively between the National Forests in NC, partner organizations, and research scientists in August 2008.”

Of course, there’s lots more detail in the 139-page EA.

Is this an “an old-school logging project”? I don’t know anything about the Pisgah. Anyone care to comment?

My main question is why these groups would appeal an apparently benign project, one that would seem to meet the “developed collaboratively” objectives? I can see a lot that I imagine these groups would support. If this was an “old-school” clearcutting project, I could understand. Maybe these groups think all logging is bad. Or maybe they just have to make some noise.

The essay below mentions a new generation of tree-sitters, such as those at the White Castle Variable Retention Harvest, a Demonstration Pilot Project designed “for the purpose of illustrating the principles of ecological restoration developed by Drs. Jerry F. Franklin and K. Norman Johnson,” according to the EA. 187 acres, with “78.4 aggregate retention acres.”

www.blm.gov/or/districts/roseburg/plans/files/WhiteCastleDR.pdf‎

In September, the BLM initiated a Temporary Area Closure for up to 2 years: “The purpose for this proposed action is to quickly implement a temporary closure of the area to public use during active logging operations. The need for action results from the danger to timber sale protesters within harvest units of an active timber sale; risks to personnel engaged in timber harvest operations; and potential damage to roads, vehicles, and equipment.”

Anyone know what’s going on at present with the sale and the protesters? Are the protesters using the same techniques, aside from occupying trees, such as leaving steel “jumping jacks” on roads to puncture tires?

Just background for the essay, from High Country News’ Writers on the Range:

Protesters still take to the trees

By Robert Leo Heilman/Writers on the Range

If you think that sitting high up in a tree to block a timber sale is a thing of the past, then you should have come with me recently to what’s called the Whitecastle timber sale in southern Oregon. There’s a new generation of protesters up in the trees there, and in many ways they’re more sophisticated than the Earth First! radicals I interviewed back in the mid-1980s.

Today’s tree-sitters are much more likely to have been involved in other movements, such as Occupy, or in environmental struggles against coal, tar sands and power plants. There are also a lot more women involved.

Not surprisingly, the sitters can seem abysmally ignorant about some things; they’re young, in their 20s for the most part, and largely raised in cities. Most of them believe that the century-old second-growth forest they’re camping in is old-growth dating back to Shakespeare’s day. But like the folks who blocked roads and chained themselves to logging equipment during the Reagan administration, they are idealists, willing to put their freedom on the line for what they believe in.

Probably the most interesting generational change is that the “old guard” were often elitists, college-educated folks who thought timber workers were too stupid and ignorant to know what was good for them. The kids nowadays want to ally themselves with the workers and take on the bosses alongside them in a fight for both ecological and labor justice.

This is not such a far-fetched notion. When the Reverend Jesse Jackson came to Roseburg, Ore. — which calls itself the timber capital of the nation — at the height of the “Timber Wars” of the early 1990s, he received an ovation from a mixed crowd of timber workers and environmentalists. He brought them to their feet when he said: “This is not about workers against environmentalists; this is about workers and environmentalists against the greedy and the wasteful.”

This change of attitude can be traced back to Judi Bari and Gene Lawhorn. She was an Earth First! activist from the redwood country of Northern California, and he was a mill worker employed by the Roseburg Forest Products Co. After they met in the late 1980s, at the University of Oregon’s annual Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, Lawhorn persuaded Bari to renounce tree-spiking and other activities that could harm loggers or mill workers.

She, in turn, was able to convince her fellow protesters that their struggle was against the bosses, not against the workers. Endangering workers was both morally reprehensible and stupidly playing into the hands of the very folks who were cutting too much timber too fast, even as they cut the wages and benefits for their employees.

Bari went on to become the victim of a bombing attack, surviving that only to die of cancer a few years later. Since her death, she has become something of a saint in leftist radical circles, her name invoked reverently by this new generation. But Gene Lawhorn has been largely forgotten. He had complex views about logging old-growth forests, and he had the courage to voice his opinions. For this he received death threats, beer bottles were smashed in his driveway and the windshield on his pickup was shattered. After he lost his job with Roseburg Forest Products Co., he couldn’t find employment anywhere in Douglas County. Neither could his wife, who found that job offers disappeared as soon as prospective employers heard her last name.

When the local daily newspaper finally published an article about the so-called “timber wars” and the death threats circulating around the county, Gene Lawhorn’s predicament was exposed right in front of God and everybody. Yet not one leader in Douglas County — no politician, preacher, member of law enforcement or of the court system, and no teacher, mill owner or government agency head — spoke out against neighbors threatening to kill their neighbors. There was a letter to the editor of the local weekly, but the writer said that Gene Lawhorn was a traitor who deserved whatever he got. By then, Gene and his wife had already fled to Portland.

The tree-sitters I talked with recently had never heard of this former neighbor of mine, a man who reached out to people whom he’d been told were his enemies. Nevertheless, these kids are now making his argument for him.

Robert Leo Heilman is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is an award winning essayist, author and journalist living in Myrtle Creek, Oregon.

Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today praised President Obama’s intent to nominate Neil G. Kornze as Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). … Kornze has led the BLM since March 1, 2013, as Principal Deputy Director, overseeing its conservation, outdoor recreation and energy development programs. …

http://tinyurl.com/nbx9ued

He has a lot of policy experience but not, apparently, any actual land management experience.

Any thoughts about how this may (or may not) affect the BLM?

Steve

I think having the Campbell Group as the subcontrator on the Four Forests Initiative stewardship contract is a very good thing, and answers critics who noted that Good Earth Power has no experience with forestry in the US (it had focused, so far, on Africa.

Article from Greenwire:

Major forest-thinning project switched to billion-dollar international company

A news brief from the National Association of State Foresters. The Continuing Resolution wasn’t “clean,” but this is a good thing.

Pointless at this point?

Judge issues order lifting federal suspension of logging sales

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter

Published: Thursday, October 17, 2013

A federal judge in Oregon today issued a restraining order blocking the Obama administration from enforcing its earlier suspension of timber sales during the government shutdown.

The order by Judge Owen Panner of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon came the same day the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service directed regional staff to begin allowing timber contractors to resume operations with the shutdown over.

The order follows a lawsuit filed this week by the American Forest Resource Council and three wood products manufacturing companies in the Pacific Northwest that argued the administration’s suspension of timber sales during the 16-day government shutdown was illegal (E&ENews PM, Oct. 15).

Tom Partin, president of AFRC, today said the judge did not rule on the merits of the suspensions but issued the order so individual contractors do not have to wait to receive approval to return to work.

“It will take a few days to get those out to the folks in the forest,” Partin said. “We greatly appreciate the judge’s [temporary restraining order] today.”

The industry had argued in the lawsuit that the suspensions were illegal because the supervision of logging activities is not “critical” and therefore activity should have continued in the absence of appropriations.

It remains to be seen whether any companies will file breach-of-contract claims against the government for lost production during the shutdown, which came at a critical time for loggers after the wildfire season and before the onset of November rains.