Greens hope Obama derails BLM Oregon logging plan

Conservationists hope that President Barack Obama's new direction on the Endangered Species Act will derail the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's plans to increase logging in Western Oregon.
Obama announced Tuesday that rather than follow rules adopted by the Bush administration giving them discretion, federal agencies should go ahead and consult with federal biologists when a project might harm endangered species.
The BLM logging plan adopted at the end of December was the Bush administration's last big effort to boost logging in the Northwest to increase timber supplies for mills and federal payments for timber-dependent counties, which get a 50-percent share of revenues from what are known as O&C Lands managed by BLM.
It covers 2.6 million acres of Western Oregon and calls for logging 510 million board feet a year, five times what BLM sold last year, but about half what was logged before the Northwest Forest Plan cut logging in 1994 to protect habitat for spotted owls, salmon and other species.
The bureau decided not to ask for a second opinion on the potential harm of the overall plan to salmon and spotted owls, arguing it made more sense to do that on specific timber sales as they come up.
BLM spokesman Michael Campbell said Tuesday they will do as they are directed by the administration, but there has been no word yet.
E-mails from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service indicate the agency was surprised by the decision by BLM not to consult with federal biologists on whether logging under the timber plans might harm wildlife.
Campbell said the BLM's decision not to consult came in October last year.
At that point there would not have been time to do the endangered species consultation on the overall plan before the Bush administration left office.
Earthjustice lawyer Janette Brimmer said they hope to get the Obama administration to order the agency to consult with biologists.
"It was clear (BLM) were applying all the principals under this (Bush administration) rule to escape consultation," she said. "Given the gross lack of science applied to their decision-making, the administration action today dictates they've got to go back, they've got to consult."
The plan faces legal challenges from both the timber industry and conservation groups for BLM's failure to consult federal scientists over the potential harm to salmon, spotted owls and marbled murrelets.

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