Senator
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

RE: OPPOSE The Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003

Dear Senator ,

The Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 (H.R. 1904) , now before the Senate, is not good for forests or people in the West. It uses the tragedy caused by last year's wildfires as an excuse to rob the American people not only of their forests but also of their rights under federal law to seek strong protection for those forests. It is a giveaway to the logging industry and a restriction on fundamental American rights. I urge you to oppose it.

This legislation would allow the U.S. Forest Service to conduct large, harmful logging projects, ostensibly to remove fuel that could feed wildfires, without considering alternative measures or their relative impacts. This would undermine the most important aspect of the landmark National Environmental Policy Act, enacted in 1972 to ensure that federal actions' harm to the environment is weighed.

Although H.R. 1904 purports to protect western communities by speeding the removal of nearby plant matter that could fuel a wildfire, the bill also encourages logging in remote backcountry areas. It would even allow logging in endangered species habitat and along streams that feed municipal water supplies.

In all, the bill calls for logging 20 million acres of federal land, even though 85 percent of forestland near vulnerable communities is on private, state and tribal lands. It fails to focus federal funding and resources on areas adjacent to at-risk communities, considered the key to reducing the threat of wildfires. The limited funding the bill would provide to communities is dedicated to new programs that have nothing to do with wildfire protection. The bill also slams the door on judicial review and reduces opportunities for public comment.

This legislation clearly aims at increasing the cutting of publicly owned forests, not on reducing the threat of wildfires. It fails to help vulnerable communities while threatening potential wilderness areas, forest health and the legal rights that are part of being American. Please do your job to represent the interests of the American people and NOT the logging industry by doing whatever it takes to ensure the defeat of The Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003.

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