09.20.06

Cantwell Statement on Roadless Rule Decision

WASHINGTON, DC – Wednesday, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) issued the following statement after Judge La Porte of the Northern District of California threw out the Bush Roadless Rule and reinstated the Clinton Roadless Rule:

“Keeping reckless road building out of our nation’s pristine federal forests is critical to striking the responsible balance needed to preserve America’s remaining wild public lands. These valuable lands provide clean drinking water, critical fish and wildlife habitat, and irreplaceable outdoor recreation opportunities and should be protected. Today, in a victory for America’s outdoor recreation enthusiasts, the courts rejected the Bush administration’s ideological push to open up every last corner of America to resource extraction. This issue should have been settled years ago, but this administration continued to push its short-sighted, misguided policy. I’ll keep fighting to keep our hunting, fishing, and hiking areas from being turned into a patchwork of road-building, logging, and mining.”

Cantwell is the primary Senate champion of efforts to preserve America’s 58.5 million areas of inventoried roadless forests, and has made the protection of these last remaining pristine lands a top priority since assuming office. In 2001, Cantwell secured a promise from Attorney General John Ashcroft during his nomination hearing to protect the Clinton Administration’s Roadless Rule. The Clinton Roadless Rule safeguards roadless federal forest lands from logging, road-building, and other environmentally damaging development. Unfortunately, in May 2005, the Bush Administration broke that promise and repealed the entire 2001 Rule, opening environmentally sensitive national forestlands to commercial exploitation. Cantwell has responded with the Roadless Area Conservation Act to permanently codify the Clinton era forestland protections. Cantwell’s bill is cosponsored by Senator Bingaman (D-NM), Ranking Member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Senator Harkin (D-IA), Ranking Member on the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, and ten other U.S. Senators.

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