Release No. 0350.96

                                     Jim Petterson (202) 720-4623

AGRICULTURE SECRETARY GLICKMAN ANNOUNCES NEW GUIDELINES FOR EMERGENCY TIMBER
   SALVAGE PROGRAM

New Policies Designed to Bolster Public Confidence in Stewardship of Public
   Lands and Ensure Compliance with President's Directive

     WASHINGTON, July 2, 1996--Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman today
issued a directive designed to address some public concerns raised about the
salvage logging rider.

     Glickman's directive is aimed at ensuring that timber sales offered
under the emergency salvage logging rider, which exempts all such sales from
public appeals, full judicial review, and deems them in compliance with
environmental laws, are truly emergency in nature.  The Secretary believes
only such emergency sales warrant these unprecedented exemptions.  Glickman is
also reenforcing President Clinton's directive to implement the salvage rider
in accordance with all environmental laws, unless expressly prohibited by the
rider.  The directive applies to proposed sales for which bids have not yet
been opened.  

     In a memorandum to Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas, Glickman
wrote: "The unique and unprecedented discretion allowed under the salvage
program authorized in P.L. 104-19 imposes an equally unprecedented
responsibility upon us to administer the program while sustaining the public's
confidence in our stewardship of the national forests."

     To help preserve and enhance the public's confidence, Glickman's
directive clarifies policy for the emergency salvage logging program.  The
directive will  increase public knowledge and involvement in decision making;
prohibit the use of the salvage rider to prepare salvage sales in pristine
inventoried roadless areas; minimize new road building under the rider;
clarify when healthy or green trees can be included in a salvage timber sale;
and to more clearly define terms "imminently susceptible to insect attack" and
"imminently susceptible to fire" which are used to describe stands of trees
eligible for the salvage program.  Any proposed timber sale that does not
qualify as emergency salvage under Glickman's directive may still move forward
under normal timber program guidelines for preparing and offering timber
sales.

     "I want to be very clear," Glickman said.  "The Forest Service's many
talented professionals are doing a good job steering through the minefield
created by the salvage rider.  However, the broad discretion contained in the
salvage rider, coupled with its elimination of the administrative appeals
process and normal judicial review, has created an atmosphere where distrust
is far too prevalent."

     The Forest Service has initiated an Interagency Salvage Program Review
involving all affected agencies.  This review team will examine the agencies'
compliance with President Clinton's directive to follow environmental laws
when preparing emergency timber sales under the salvage rider and the
Memorandum of Agreement that guides the implementation of the rider.  The
review team will report its findings in August.  

     "Until we have had a chance to study the review team's report, my
interim directive instructs the Forest Service to enhance its efforts to
comply with the spirit and intent of the President's directive," said
Glickman.  "I am especially concerned about involving the public and providing
more information on proposed salvage sales before offering them for sale.

     "The Forest Service should continue to prepare green sales and normal
salvage sales in compliance with all the laws," said Glickman.  "My directive
gives guidance on the kind of sales offered under a rider that eliminates
environmental safeguards and the public involvement.  The government has got
to be careful and responsible in the use of this unprecedented power.  The
salvage rider should be used only where emergency conditions warrant its use. 
Those places include areas where dead, damaged, downed, and insect-infested
trees are rapidly declining in value and where the threat of fire to
communities, homes, and people is real."

     The new salvage guidelines will not affect the Forest Service's ability
to meet the salvage timber targets Glickman committed to last year when
Congress insisted on attaching the salvage rider to legislation providing
assistance to victims of the Oklahoma City bombing.  Based on preliminary
Forest Service estimates, the final number of board feet of salvage timber
expected to be offered by the rider's December 31, 1996, expiration date are
well within the program goal of 4.5 billion board feet, plus or minus 25
percent.  From August 1995 through March 1996, the Administration has offered
2.062 billion board feet for sale to timber purchasers.  A report on the
volume offered from April through June is in preparation.

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