
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 10, 1995                   TAG: 9507100030
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

A LOUSY COMPROMISE

THE APPARENT demise of the $16 billion budget-rescission bill last month did not get the attention it deserved. I say ``apparent,'' because Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole left the bill on the Senate calendar, though the July 1 deadline has passed. Some package of cuts to this year's budget may be resuscitated. But one thing that is certain already is the self-inflicted damage to President Clinton from this episode.

The White House agonized for weeks over whether the benefits of a compromise (proving that the president could work with the Republican-controlled Congress and providing funds for various administration priorities) outweighed having to swallow what is arguably the worst piece of public lands legislation ever.

At the last minute, the president made the wrong decision - in favor of the bill that was eventually to be killed by the resistance of a couple of Senate holdouts anyway - and thus ended up further alienating House Democrats caught unawares, and enraging environmentalists, especially in California, Washington and Oregon.

The provision that caused all the trouble requires a ``salvage'' sale of timber from the national forests and other public lands. For this purpose, all relevant environmental laws are suspended - the National Forest Management Act, the Clean Water Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the Endangered Species Act and the basic prior assessment protections of the National Environmental Policy Act.

To ensure that this extraordinary about-face from decades of public-lands management is not promptly thrown out by the courts, due process is also suspended. The public is largely barred from recourse to judicial review. Existing court orders that might get in the way are also supervened.

True salvage logging can be, and is, carried out under existing law. The clue to the real purpose of this measure comes in the definition of the dead and ``dying'' trees that are to be salvaged. They are those that are ``imminently susceptible to fire or insect attack'' - in other words, all those made of wood and - to make sure that none are off limits - any ``associated'' trees.

This is not merely a giveaway of public assets; in addition the taxpayer is to pay for the privilege of being raped. Many of these sales will be money-losing transactions; the costs to the Forest Service (in building access roads etc.) will exceed the revenues.

And the direct costs, which could be as high as $300 million, are just the beginning. Much of the $200 million being spent to save endangered salmon could be nullified by the erosion-caused damage to their habitat. After the bonanza is over, the public will be stuck with the bill for what can be repaired: cleanup of damaged streams and rivers, the removal of silt behind hydroelectric dams, the protection of newly endangered fish, plants and birds. The public will also pay, directly and indirectly, for the damages that can't be restored like the loss of old-growth forests and the decline in soil productivity.

This measure completes the picture of the cartoon Republican politician rushing to feed corporate greed at public expense. It makes no pretense of environmental reform or of restoring balance to environmental management. It is publicly sanctioned pillage, deserving of a veto not only for the harm it would do the forests but for a number of other reasons as well:

Because the practice of attaching sweeping legislation to an appropriations bill is a discredited and reprehensible one. At a time when so much policy must be made through budget choices, the practice is an open door to legislative abuse.

Because of its budgetary impact, now and in the future. Subsidized timber sales have always been bad policy. When the public is being asked to make increasingly painful sacrifices in order to balance the budget, they are wholly unacceptable.

Because its closing of public recourse to judicial review is dangerous to a democracy and unworthy of a nation of laws.

Because setting the precedent of suspending environmental laws for short-term commercial profit invites every private interest to belly up to the trough for similar treatment. The line has already formed. It's ``come and get it'' time in Washington.

In failing to say any of this, Clinton not only agreed to an appalling piece of legislation but forfeited his ability to sharply distinguish his own and his party's values from those the salvage provision represents.

Jessica Mathews is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

- The Washington Post

by CNB