07.25.02

Statement (as prepared) on introduction of Roadless Area Conservation Act

Thank you. We are here today to introduce the bipartisan Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2002.

I am proud to introduce this legislation with the senior Senator from Virginia, John Warner. Senator Warner sits on the Environment and Public Works Committee and has been a great leader for preserving and restoring our forests, rivers, lakes and oceans.

I am also proud to be joined by Senators Max Cleland of Georgia, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia as original co-sponsors.

When President Theodore Roosevelt created our National Forests, he took the single most important step in our nation's history towards preserving our forests for future generations.

We believe that the Roadless Area Conservation Act is the logical next step in realizing Teddy Roosevelt's vision. It will usher in a new, balanced framework for national forest management, preserving public forest land for future generations while recognizing the importance of forests to economy.

The Act would ban new road building in our threatened national forests by putting into law the Roadless Area Conservation Rule that has been blocked by court battles and administrative inaction.

Under the Act, 58.5 million acres, located in all 50 states and representing 31% of all national forest land, would be protected from new roads except in cases of emergency such as fire or imminent danger to human health and property.

Our bill would not reduce that by a single acre or eliminate a single mile of existing road, impacting only one-half of one percent of current timber harvests. It would allow resource extraction to continue in roaded areas and grandfather existing leases while protecting roadless areas for clean drinking water, habitat for plant and animal species and recreational uses like hunting, fishing, mountain biking and snowmobiling.

But the Roadless Area Conservation Act is not just good forest policy, it's sound fiscal policy. Today, there are 386,000 miles of existing roads in our national forest system, enough to circle the globe 17 times! 305,000 miles of these roads are in need of great repair, resulting in an $8.4 billion road maintenance backlog, including 16 states each with backlogs of more than $100 million. Washington state alone has a backlog of $278 million. Our point is simple: we should spend taxpayer dollars on repairing existing roads, not building new ones.

Our bill is based on the Roadless Area Conservation Rule developed by the previous Administration and based on more than 600 public meetings in local communities nationwide and over 1.6 million public comments, 95% of which supported protecting our national forests. According to recent surveys, 67% of the public supports protecting roadless areas in our national forests.

Yet the Roadless Area Conservation Rule has been cut off at the knees. The primary reason offered by the judge who enjoined the rule last year was the Department of Justice's lack of a defense for the rule. The Administration plans to weaken and rewrite the rule and has already issued interim directives undoing parts of the rule.

So we have concluded that to protect roadless areas for future generations, Congress must take action to enact the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Congress must embrace the public opinion that helped generate the rule in the first place and prevent special interests from stopping the rule dead in its tracks.

Without this legislation, I am convinced that this balanced roadless policy will die a painful death and our greatest opportunity in a generation to protect our national forests will be lost.