Democrats in the U.S. Congress and environmentalists pressed the Bush administration yesterday to uphold the policy approved by former President Clinton to ban road-building and logging on a third of the country’s national forests. They say that more than 2 million Americans have told the government they favor the ban, a record number of comments regarding a federal rule. The Bush administration disapproves of the ban and has been struggling to find a way to alter it since taking office. President Bush reopened a public-comment period on the ban in July; that period ends on Monday. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said, “We’re here to urge [Bush] to turn a deaf ear to the siren song of special interests and to follow the will of the American people.”
