Bush announces new plan to fight wildfires

President Bush Thursday announced a new plan to combat wildfires by streamlining federal regulations on forest management and encouraging agencies to rely more on industry to thin forests.

The administration's "Healthy Forests" initiative would make it easier for timber companies to cut trees and brush in fire-prone forests. More than 5.9 million acres have burned in the western states so far this year-500,000 acres more than in the record-setting 2000 fire season.

After the 2000 fire season, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service developed a national fire plan, which supported controlled burns, thinning and fire preparedness programs. The "Healthy Forests" initiative builds on that plan.

Bush defended his plan to ease logging regulations, which some critics fear will sharply increase logging and deforestation. "What the critics need to do is come and stand right where I stand … and see firsthand the effects of bad forest policy," Bush told a group of reporters at the Squires Peak fire area in Ruch, Ore. "And by the way, there's nothing wrong with people being able to earn a living off of effective forest management," he said.

Bush, who traveled to Oregon on Thursday to assess the damage from fires blazing in that state, directed Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and Interior Secretary Gale Norton to streamline the regulatory process for forest management by reducing overlapping environmental reviews and to develop guidance for a cost-benefit analysis of fuels treatment and restoration projects.

The Forest Service and Interior Department are planning to treat more than 2.5 million acres this year with thinning or prescribed burns to reduce hazardous fuels and restore forest health.

Other proposals in the plan, including one authorizing agencies to enter into long-term stewardship contracts with industry, nonprofit organizations and local communities, must be approved by Congress. Stewardship contracts allow contractors to keep wood products in exchange for the service of thinning trees and brush and removing dead wood.