Biscuit salvage a loser.

Byline: The Register-Guard

The federal government will lose nearly $2 million on the sale of timber salvaged after southwest Oregon's 2002 Biscuit fire, says a new report from the Government Accountability Office, the independent investigative arm of Congress.

Congressman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Bush administration officials have pointed to costly delays in salvaging timber from the Biscuit burn as Exhibit A in the case for a Walden-sponsored bill that would expedite the logging and replanting of burned forests after wildfires and other natural disasters.

The GAO study undermines Walden's and the administration's claims that environmental lawsuits delayed post-Biscuit fire logging. Instead, the report assigns much of the blame to the administration's midstream decision to vastly expand the scope of logging. Other factors cited by the report included staffing cuts at the U.S. Forest Service and the complexity of federal environmental laws and regulations.

While the Forest Service projected that the Biscuit salvage would generate at least moderate economic returns, the GAO report says the agency will spend nearly $11 million and receive less than $9 million in return.

That's hardly uncommon in post-fire logging sales. The Forest Service and the Bush administration routinely turn a blind eye to the bottom line in their eagerness to cater to the timber industry.

The GAO report won't stop the claims that Walden's misguided timber salvage bill is needed to speed up salvage logging. After all, the bill's supporters have had no qualms about refusing to acknowledge the growing body of scientific evidence that says salvage logging and reforestation can destroy biological diversity that fire and natural recovery can nurture and protect.

Walden continues to insist that his salvage bill is needed to limit potential fire damage, even raising the specter of a "Katrina of our forests." Interesting that he invokes Katrina, since the swift execution of salvage logging projects across the Gulf Coast after the hurricane demonstrates that current law already provides for expedited salvage efforts.

Walden even has gone so far as to invoke the name of Teddy Roosevelt, saying the Rough Rider "would be rolling over in his grave if he knew how badly his great forest reserves were being treated by those who think abandoning a burned area after a fire is stewardship."

Far more likely that Roosevelt would be doing subterranean somersaults if he could see the Bush administration's relentless assault on his legacy of conservation and protection of public lands.