Congress isn’t just looking out for the timber
industry. In an uncontested voice vote, the Senate approved an
amendment to its budget recision bill requiring the Forest Service
to reissue grazing permits to ranchers “notwithstanding any other
law …” Such legal “sufficiency” language would prevent citizens
from challenging permits, even where land has been degraded in
violation of federal laws such as the Clean Water Act. Sen. Larry
Pressler, R-S.D., offered the amendment after being lobbied by
ranchers with soon-to-expire permits on the Black Hills National
Forest. They fear the Forest Service might kick their cows off the
forest if the agency fails to complete environmental analyses for
their permits by the end of the year, as required by the National
Environmental Policy Act. Nationwide, the agency must complete
analyses for 4,300 permits by Dec. 31, 1995 (HCN, 1/23/95). In
March, Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas told a congressional
subcommittee that he “would be delighted” to have Congress exempt
permits from NEPA. In an angry letter to Thomas, 13 environmental
groups from the West criticized his invitation to Congress as “poor
science, poor law, and poor policy.”
* Paul
Larmer
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Congress helps ranchers, too.
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