Bush's plans for forests draw fire from Democrats

Before fire-blackened trees, US President George W. Bush opened a campaign Monday to polish his environmental image with a forest-thinning initiative that he said would prevent wildfires like those that destroyed hundreds of homes here.

Bush followed up his speech by selecting a new chief of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): the Republican governor of Utah, Mike Leavitt. If confirmed by the Senate, Leavitt will succeed Christie Whitman, who resigned in May.

The EPA post has been a lightning rod for critics of the administration's environmental policies. Whitman resigned in May after 2 1/2 years in which she sometimes butted heads with administration officials who saw energy development as a bigger priority. Against Whitman's advice, Bush rejected the international Kyoto treaty on global warming.

Leavitt, 52, has championed the idea of increasing environmental cooperation among federal, state and local officials.

Over the objections of environmentalists, he advocated a major highway extension through wetlands and wildlife habitat near the Great Salt Lake -- a project a federal appeals court halted.

Bush's trip on Monday was the first of four environmental events in August -- another "Healthy Forest Initiative" in Oregon, one on preserving national parks in California and one on salmon habitat in Washington state. A recent poll found that Democrats held a 2-1 advantage over Bush when people were asked whom they trust to do a better job on the environment.

Bush surveyed the devastation left by wildfires that scorched more than 40,000 hectares around this mountaintop community in the last two summers.

He said the Healthy Forests Initiative would help prevent destruction by reducing legal obstacles to logging projects in fire-threatened areas.

"Forest-thinning projects make a significant difference about whether or not wildfires will destroy a lot of property," Bush said.

Critics say the initiative will make it too easy for logging companies to cut down trees in national forests and will limit the public's input in forest management decisions.

Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat from Connecticut who is running for president, said Bush is "using the real need to clear brush and small trees from our forests as an excuse for a timber industry giveaway ... this is logging industry greed masquerading as environmental need."

Senator John Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts who is also candidate for president, said Bush's proposal would roll back environmental protections and target forests that are hundreds of kilometers from communities.

The Forest Service and Interior Department estimate 76 million hectares are at risk for catastrophic fire.

The House of Representatives has passed a bill that calls for aggressive logging on up to 8 million hectares of federal land at high risk of fire.

A similar bill has passed the Senate agriculture committee.

Previous rules required environmental studies for nearly every logging project.

Under Healthy Forests, logging projects affecting 400 hectares at most will not need such studies if the land is deemed at risk for fire.

Controlled burns, where fire is used to burn excess trees under certain circumstances, could be done without environmental studies for projects up to 1,800 hectares.

Neither of these "categorically excluded" projects would be subject to administrative appeals, but they could be challenged in court.