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Roadless Rule Legislative Proposal On June 5, Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Washington) and Sherwood Boehlert (R-New York) introduced their National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2002 (4865), which proposes to establish by statute the terms of the Clinton administration's "roadless" initiative. Boasting strong support, the sponsors predicted easy passage, even in the Republican-controlled House, and chief sponsor Inslee stated, "We'd like the President to join rather than get in the way of that rule, but we have to make sure to protect these forests no matter which way the wind blows in the White House." Responding to an approving editorial in the June 5 Washington Post, Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey published a letter in the Post on June 15, pointing out that the Inslee-Boehlert bill, whatever its merits, does not resolve the numerous points in the original initiative still being litigated and that, furthermore, the Department of Agriculture is still developing guidelines to address the concerns raised during the public comment period, by way of expressing the current Administration's commitment to "protect roadless values." On June 18, the National Association of Homebuilders sent letters to all member of the House expressing its opposition to Inslee-Boehlert, not in terms of timber supply but in terms of the bill's violation of the principle of local participation in natural resource decisionmaking, the threat it poses to forest health and Endangered Species protection, and of other principles expressed in the National Forest Management Act. Return to Public Policy Archive Forest Resources Association
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