Word: owls
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...officials with the power to grant exceptions to the Endangered Species Act. Last month, over Reilly's protests, a committee majority gave loggers the go-ahead to cut down 688 hectares (1,700 acres) of ancient forest in the Pacific Northwest that is home to the threatened northern spotted owl...
...BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS MADE NO SECRET of its antipathy toward the Endangered Species Act and its most celebrated case, the northern spotted owl. Environmentalists have used the owl as a stalking horse to save the last 10% of old-growth forest in the Northwest; loggers claim that protecting it costs them 32,000 jobs. Last week the rare birds trembled, after the Cabinet-level committee known as the God Squad voted to override the act and allow timber sales on 1,700 acres...
Such an exemption has been granted only once before in the act's 19-year existence. While environmentalists go to court to reverse the action, conservation legislation is winding its way through Congress to protect not only the owl also but the salmon, steelhead and other species dependent on the old-growth-forest ecosystems. Lawmakers also hope to help timber communities and retrain lumberjacks, many of whom will lose their jobs anyway when the last, irreplaceable trees fall. (See related story on page...
...revealed his priorities. The so-called God Squad, a Cabinet-level committee of which he is chairman, announced its intention to exempt from the Endangered Species Act timber sales on various federal lands in Oregon -- despite warnings from biologists that the sales pose a threat to the northern spotted owl. It is only the second time in the act's 19-year history that an exemption has been granted. (The previous case involved the whooping crane and a Wyoming dam project...
...required by law, Lujan also released a long-awaited recovery plan for the owl, which would add new restrictions on harvesting lumber in areas of Oregon, Washington and Northern California where the birds build their nests. The plan's economic impact, says Lujan, would be very high: 32,000 jobs lost. Shrewdly, the Secretary also offered an alternative plan that he says would cost just 15,000 jobs. That plan, however, would violate the Endangered Species Act by reducing critical habitat for the endangered bird; it would therefore require congressional approval. In effect, Lujan once again fulfilled his role...