Was Clinton right to ban fire roads in forests?

For a century, the U.S. Forest Service suppressed minor wildfires rather than let them burn out the underbrush in National Forests. As a result, the General Accounting Office (GAO) told Congress in 1998, "vegetation accumulated, creating high levels of fuels for catastrophic fires."

In 1999, the GAO told Congress that because of the way the Forest Service was administered by the Clinton Administration "many acres of national forests in the interior West may [still] remain at high risk of uncontrollable wildfire at the end of fiscal year 2015."

In January 2001, President Clinton approved the "Roadless Area Conservation Rule:' which restricted the building of roads on 58.5 million acres of National Forest land. In the West, people call the unpaved roads through these-forests "fire roads"because they provide access for firefighters.

On May 4, Agricultural Secretary Ann Veneman announced that the Bush Administration would implement Clinton's roadless rule. "This administration," she said, "is committed to providing roadless protection to our national forests."

A week later a federal judge in Idaho slapped an injunction on enforcement of the rule, but Veneman indicated her department would move forward with plans to implement it pending the outcome of litigation.

Given the potentially lethal fires that have raged through National Forests in just the first few weeks of this hot season, HUMAN EVENTS Assistant Editor David Freddoso asked members of Congress whether Clinton's roadless rule was a mistake.

Given the fires that are raging out West, was President Clinton mistaken to ban the building of fire roads on 58 million acres of national forests?

REP. ROSCOE BARTLETT (R.-MD.): I'm not an authority on national forests, but I think that there are a lot of things that we've done in the past that we can point to as probably causes of our present problems out there. One is that if you put out little fires as they occur, that would have burned out when it wasn't so dry, those little fires produce firebreaks. Now we don't have any firebreaks. So the fire gets going, and where is it going to stop? Clearly you need fire roads....

Should Congress overturn the roadless ban?

BARTLETT: In wilderness areas? It depends on what wilderness are. The wilderness area that has plenty of rainfall, where fires aren't a threat-I don't want roads in there. I'm kind of a wilderness freak, in spite of the fact that I'm a strong conservative. But where the wilderness is likely to go up in smoke without fire roads, heck yeah, they ought to be there. It's a matter of common sense. We ought to put them where common sense dictates they ought to be.

Given the fires that are raging right now in your state and in Colorado, was President Clinton mistaken to ban the building of fire roads on 58 million acres of national forests?

REP. JEFF FLAKE (R.-ARIZ.): Yes.

Yes. We have a lot of issues. He was also wrong to support efforts to stop thinning in the forest and forest management in general. And now we're paying the price. The radical environmentalists have just run amok. And we're paying the price for it now.

Should Congress take steps to overturn that policy?

FLAKE: Yes. We've got to move in, not just on the roadless rule, but on a number of issues to get around these restrictions and these frivolous lawsuits that are keeping us from maintaining the forests. Here's how ridiculous it has become: Today's East Valley Tribune in Arizona reports [how] the environmentalists are on the run right now. Get this, they said today: We're not opposed to forest thinning. And they were asked: Under what conditions? And somebody from the Forest Guardian said that so long as it's not commercial interests doing it, as long as it is with solarpowered chainsaws. No joke. No joke. That's what we're dealing with here. They say they want to come to the table and work with people, and they come to the table with solar-powered chainsaws. I mean, if it weren't so deadly it would be laughable. It's just ridiculous.

Given the devastating fires out West, was President Clinton mistaken to ban the building of fire roads on 58 million acres of national forests?

REP. WALLY HERGER (R.-CALIF.): I think we should ask that to the people out in Colorado and last year New Mexico where the fires are burning. In my own state, our fires don't begin until a little later on, where they can't get to to put these fires out. Whether or not he was mistaken-I think it's clear that he was. That's only part of what he was mistaken at. I mean, our forests are anywhere from three to ten times denser than they were historically, because we eliminated fires about a hundred years ago, and we need to go in and begin thinning them out so as to remove the fire hazard. And yet, we're not doing any of that, basically. So yes, he's about as mistaken as anyone can be and I'm afraid we're going to be paying for it for many years to come.

Should Congress overturn the regulation on fire roads?

HERGER: Well, I believe absolutely. But our problem is, we have an overwhelmingly strong, radical environmental movement, which was reported in our own Sacramento Bee here last year, that raised three-and-a-half billion dollars a year that they put into campaigns and hiring lobbyists and lawyers, and they're out suing on everything that happened. So ... even though we drastically need to be doing that, I don't see that happening anytime soon.