Congressmen offer forest management bill

Saying action is needed to save suffering national forests and the rural economies that surround them, Oregon Reps. Greg Walden and Kurt Schrader offered legislation Tuesday aimed at thinning woodlands and using the material to meet the rising demand for renewable fuels. The package of bills were also sponsored by Democratic Reps. Brian Baird of Washington and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota and Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers, would update the current forest management law passed in 2003. Since that time, the bipartisan group said more than 40 million acres of forest have burned and more have been blighted by disease and pests. The local economies have been ravaged too, with many currently experiencing 15 percent (or higher) unemployment. The current law, they said, it not muscular enough to deal with those conditions. ``The one thing I learned is, you don't solve a problem by ignoring it,'' Walden, a Republican, said during a news conference. ``Here's what we have to show for this policy of neglect - record unemployment in forested communities. Catastrophic wildfire nearly year after year after year. Massive bug kill in our federal forests, threatened habitat and watersheds,'' he said. ``Our federal forests are sick. They are choked. They burn in the summers and they're being eaten alive by bugs. Simply put, our federal forests are a national treasure but a national treasure that's in peril.''...read more