Editorial
Roadless policy should be salvaged

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Bush administration plans to abandon sweeping conservation rules on 58 million acres of national forests are not good for the environment or the treasury.

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman would open up the forests to more logging, but said governors could petition the federal government to block the road-building necessary for timber sales to work in remote areas. This is a bad idea that has drawn understandable opposition from environmental groups that want to keep pristine forests closed to logging, mining and drilling.

Less visible is another potent group of opponents who are offended by the gouging of taxpayers by expensive road-building subsidies for timber companies.

The greens and the budget hawks are supported by broad public sentiments tapped by three years of review by the Clinton administration before the policy was enacted. The Roadless Area Conservation Rule was shaped by extensive public consultation.

The United States has 191 million acres of national forests, and protecting roughly 30 percent of them stirs passions because they are grasslands and timbered vistas in 39 states.

Besides, current rules left decisions about selective logging, grazing and recreation to local administrators.

Logging roads do not come close to paying for themselves with the proceeds of federal timber sales. Congress was clearly disenchanted with the expense of building, maintaining and decommissioning roads for commercial logging.

Talk of more construction collides with an estimated $10 billion backlog of remedial work on more than 300,000 miles of existing roads.

Taxpayers get bit twice. Erosion from poorly maintained or abandoned logging roads destroys salmon habitat and undercuts expensive restoration projects being paid for out of another taxpayer pocket.

Under the administration's plan, governors who object to Forest Service plans could appeal. Even as proposed, the process appears sufficiently burdensome, confusing and expensive to discourage challenges.

Forest Service rules that are in place work. No one can articulate any urgency for more logging roads taxpayers cannot afford. Stick with the balanced approach in place.