The Bush administration and environmentalists are at loggerheads over what should happen to national forests burned in last summer’s wildfire season. The administration is pushing for aggressive logging of scorched forests, including older and larger trees; next month, it will propose new rules meant to reduce delays in timber sales due to environmental appeals. Enviros, meanwhile, argue that it would be best to leave the burned slopes alone, and that the administration is using the issue of salvage logging to try to expand cutting willy-nilly, ignoring ecological consequences.
