NY Times: Who Will Protect the Forests?

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama strongly supported a regulation enacted near the end of the Clinton administration prohibiting commercial activity in nearly 60 million roadless acres of the national forests. Eager to open those forests to timber and oil companies, the Bush administration spent eight years trying to undermine the rule. It remains at risk, and President Obama should intervene now to save the rule and the forests it is meant to protect. The president or Tom Vilsack, whose duties as agriculture secretary include overseeing the Forest Service, must first issue a directive ordering the service not to approve or propose any action inconsistent with the roadless rule. Traditionally, local and regional officials have had broad power to set policy in national forests. Mr. Vilsack would reserve major decisions for himself until the rule is more firmly established in law. Mr. Obama’s second priority is to get everyone in his administration on the same page. In an unwelcome holdover from the Bush days, Justice Department lawyers are challenging the roadless rule in court even though the president supports it. And while the White House has changed hands, the Forest Service has not. Its top official, Gail Kimbell, is a Bush appointee; Mr. Vilsack and Mr. Obama need their own person in charge. Finally, having called a “time out” and positioned his lawyers and Forest Service on the right side of the issue, Mr. Obama needs to put the power of the White House behind legislation that would codify the roadless rule into law. As a senator, Mr. Obama co-sponsored just such a bill...NYTimes