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South Dakota Timber Summit On August 15, South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle (D), who has been Senate Majority Leader since the recent changeover of Senate control, convened a Forest Policy Summit in Rapid City, South Dakota to address conflicting use values with respect to the Black Hills National Forest, in view of a widely perceived stalemate in the planning process. Sen. Daschle came armed with a proposal to convene a "local advisory council" to advise the Forest Service and a "national commission" to review how the Forest Service makes decisions, but most of the 600 participants-even Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth-thought the matter had been studied enough already: "This problem is called analysis paralysis, and we're in it big time," he said-referring to delays in implementation caused by administrative appeals. In addition to Bosworth, panelists included the Black Hills National Forest supervisor, the Rocky Mountain Region Forest Service head, and South Dakota Governor Bill Janklow, as well as the manager of Pope & Talbot's sawmill in Spearfish and Jim Riley of the Intermountain Forestry Association. According to the Rapid City Journal's August 15 account, "the overwhelming majority of summit participants-including loggers, elected officials from every branch of government, and Forest Service managers from Bosworth on down-said the agency's system of administrative appeals should be streamlined to produce faster decisions," with Bosworth calling for congressional action toward that end. For the complete text of Bill Harlan's article, see www.rapidcityjournal.com/archives, using "Bosworth" as a search term under the August 15 date. Return to Public Policy Archive Forest Resources Association
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