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News From.... Washington, D.C. - August 7, 2002 -- Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo (CA-14th) announced the introduction of the Act to Save America's Forests (H.R. 5279), bipartisan legislation to protect national forests from destructive logging and road-building. 121 of her colleagues are original cosponsors of the legislation, making it the most-widely supported comprehensive forest protection bill in the Congress. "Our national forests are our national and natural legacy," said Eshoo. "Current management policy that allow extensive logging of these treasures is the equivalent of tearing down the Parthenon, the Coliseum, and the Pyramids in order to sell the stone. The Act to Save America's Forests reshapes forest management to ensure that the health of the forest is the priority." The Act to Save America's Forests bans logging and road-building in roadless areas, watersheds, and riparian corridors of the national forests. It also bans destructive logging practices, such as clearcutting, in all other areas of the national forest system. Finally, the bill provides for protection and restoration of the last remaining core areas of forest biodiversity in the United States. Eshoo added, "Existing logging policies are ruining habitat, killing off wildlife, degrading the soil, and causing erosion. The impacts of logging go beyond the forests...dangerous runoff can spill into rivers and harm fish populations, particularly salmon. Logging also requires an enormous and costly federal road-building and maintenance effort. It amounts to a multi-million dollar annual subsidy of the timber industry. The Act to Save America's Forests will reverse the dangerous consequences of these senseless policies." Representative Eshoo has been a leader in the effort to protect forests
in the House. This marks the third consecutive Congress in which Eshoo
has introduced the Act to Save America's Forests. She is also an original
cosponsor of the Roadless Area Conservation Act (H.R. 4865), legislation
that would codify regulations adopted under President Clinton to limit
logging in roadless areas. The Clinton regulations have been under assault
by a federal judge in Idaho and by the Bush Administration. As a member
of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors in 1991, Eshoo authored an
ordinance to create a buffer zone between homes and tree harvesting operations. |