US:Logging of Public Lands

[The.Greenbase@gb.greenpeace.org]

>>  PASS A LAW, LOOT THE FOREST, CHARGE THE TAXPAYER 


                    ************************
                    GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
                    ************************
  
>>  PASS A LAW, LOOT THE FOREST, CHARGE THE TAXPAYER 
    House Bill to Mandate Massive Taking of Public Lands
 
"Sufficiency Rider" Suspends Federal Laws in Blatant Timber Grab  
 
SAN FRANCISCO, March 15, 1995 (GP)  Subsidized timber
corporations will gorge themselves on public lands if a bill now
being considered in the House becomes law this week. The "Taylor
Salvage Rider" to a new appropriations bill orders an additional
6.2 billion board feet cut from publicly owned national forest
and BLM land in the   next two years. The cut trees would be
enough to fill a column of log trucks halfway around the world.
  
     In addition to tremendous forest destruction, the rider  
amendment uses "sufficiency" language to decree that all federal 
 
laws, like the Endangered Species Act, are suspended for the  
purposes of the bill. 
      
     "If Congress wants to talk takings, let's talk takings,"  
said Kelly Quirke, coordinator of Greenpeace USA's temperate  
forest campaign. "This is an insidious taking of public lands,  
for the profit of industrial timber corporations, brokered by the
 
United States Congress."  
  
     If the Taylor Rider passes, the estimated cost to taxpayers
could be as high as $1 billion. Profits to the timber industry,
which is already heavily subsidized, would be astronomical, as
the commercial worth of the average old-growth tree is $5000.    
 
   In the past week, dozens of environmental and forest
activist groups have mobilized to alert the public about this
rider.  Greenpeace alone has contacted over 30,000 citizens in
one week. Thousands of calls have been made and letters faxed to
Congress and members of the Rules Committee to express grassroots
opposition to the Taylor Salvage Rider.   
 
     "Congress is using its Contract as a smoke screen to sneak
this destructive rider through the House," said Quirke.  "This 
vote will show whether Congress members represent their
grassroots constituents or corporate timber." 
 
                              # # #
 
CONTACT: Kelly Quirke, San Francisco, (415) 512-9025 
         Cynthia Rust, Seattle, (206) 632-4326