On timber, thanks for nothing

After a year of study, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's crackerjack task force on western Oregon timber management has concluded that, gee, lots of people are frustrated and things are pretty tough out there. We can't wait for next year's sequel in which the Obama task force is invited back to take another yearlong look and rediscovers that, believe it or not, lots of people remain frustrated and things are pretty tough out there. This could go on forever. It would be laughable if the unemployment rate across much of rural Oregon wasn't running at 12 to 15 percent, if timber towns weren't trying desperately to hold together their basic public services such as police and libraries, if huge swaths of public forests weren't overstocked with small trees one lightning strike or tossed cigarette away from going up in flames late this summer. We made the mistake of taking the interior secretary at his word last year when the Obama administration abandoned the Western Oregon Plan Revision, or WOPR, which sought to increase logging on more than 2 million acres of public forests. Salazar promised that the task force would come up with a plan that would increase logging and thinning while complying with the Endangered Species Act. Instead, the task force issued a report Thursday that calls for a three- to five-year planning process and concludes what everybody already knows: Major obstacles such as distrust among competing interest groups and conflicting federal policies stand in the way of increasing logging on western Oregon's public forests and creating more economic activity in rural communities. Given all that rural Oregon is struggling with, this "plan to have a plan," as Oregon's Rep. Peter DeFazio described it Thursday, is inexcusable. There's no urgency in the task force report, no acknowledgement of the economic emergency, no commitment to provide any leadership to help resolve the conflicts over management of the public forests. As Rep. Greg Walden said, "It's doubly frustrating that while this report was being put together, timber sales dropped to historic lows. The sick forests and the economy in southern Oregon can't wait any longer." If the Obama administration doesn't have the time or attention to give to Northwest forest issues, it ought to just say so rather than carry on any more charades like this one. Other leaders, notably DeFazio and Sen. Ron Wyden, have offered serious proposals to break the stalemate on public lands by protecting old-growth trees and allowing speedier access to smaller logs. Wyden promised Thursday to press for a legislative alternative, and we urge the senator and the rest of the Oregon delegation to step up their efforts in Congress. Let's not waste any more time waiting for the Obama administration to lead the way toward a better, saner forest policy on western Oregon lands. If there's anything valuable about the task force report, it's the takeaway message that it's folly to wait for the administration to solve our forest issues. Oregonian