From: [Clinton HQ] at [Campaign92.Org] (The White House)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: CLINTON: Q&A After Forest Announcement 7.1.93
Date: 2 Jul 1993 09:10:27 -0400
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release July 1, 1993
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT,
THE VICE PRESIDENT, SECRETARY OF INTERIOR BRUCE BABBITT,
SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE MIKE ESPY,
SECRETARY OF LABOR ROBERT REICH,
SECRETARY OF COMMERCE RON BROWN,
EPA ADMINISTRATOR CAROL BROWNER
IN FOREST ANNOUNCEMENT
Old Executive Office Building
10:34 A.M. EDT
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Today, President Bill Clinton is
demonstrating his commitment to the people, the communities, the
economy and the environment of the Pacific Northwest and northern
California with a balanced, comprehensive and innovative plan.
Where past administrations created confusion and
controversy by ducking the tough decisions and allowing gridlock to
remain in place, President Clinton is providing leadership and
showing real courage by taking action. These are difficult, complex
issues. We knew that from the beginning. But the President did not
shy away from them. President Clinton recognized that for the future
of the Northwest United States these issues had to be confronted
boldly and resolved, so we can put the past behind us and move on to
the future.
That's why the President brought hundreds of people
together at the Forest Conference in Portland. That's why he has
directed his administration to work together with him, benefitting
from the advice and views of so many people from across the region,
representing every possible perspective to carefully craft the plan
that he will announce today in a few moments.
I'll let the President tell you about his plan. But
before he does, I want to make sure that everyone here today and all
those who share our commitment to resolving these issues in a fair
and balanced way recognizes the change and progress that this plan
represents. President Clinton's plan offers an innovative and
comprehensive approach to forest management that combines real
environmental protection with an all-out commitment to economic
development and growth in a total package that concentrates on the
economy of the Northwest.
A healthy forest economy demands healthy forests. And
the President's plan ensures both. For the families and communities
in the region, the President's plan offers significant new economic
and job opportunities. For businesses and industry, it offers
critical assistance to create jobs and grow, particularly in
expanding industries like secondary wood manufacturing. And for the
environment, it offers a valuable new perspective focused on
protecting critical water supplies and the most valuable old-growth
forests and allowing for new environmental research and
experimentation and job-creating investments in ecological
restoration.
This plan reflects the best work of scores of economists
and scientists and experts from across the government and across the
region, and a commitment to follow existing laws. It has benefitted
greatly from the input of all those consulted -- members of Congress,
representatives of business, industry, labor, environmental
organizations, tribes, governors, state government officials, and
local government. The Forest Conference brought all sides together
in recognition of the need for action and an end to divisiveness and
controversy.
That spirit of cooperation and commitment to the people,
the economy and the environment of the region must continue now as we
work together to replace the policies of the past with a plan for the
future that offers critical assistance now. President Clinton is
committed to that goal. That's why he has shown the courage and
innovation in announcing this plan today.
It is now my pleasure and honor to introduce the
President of the United States Bill Clinton. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Ladies and
gentlemen, this issue has been one which has bedeviled the people of
the Pacific Northwest for some years now. It has been one that has
particularly moved me for two reasons: First of all, because so many
people in that part of the country brought their concerns to me in
the campaign on all sides of this issue -- the timber workers and
companies, the environmentalists, the Native Americans, the people
who live in those areas who just wanted to see the controversy so
they could get on with their lives. And secondly, because I grew up
in a place with a large timber industry and a vast amount of natural
wilderness, including a large number of national forests. So I have
a very close identity with all the forces at play in this great drama
that has paralyzed the Pacific Northwest for too long.
We're announcing a plan today which we believe will
strengthen the long-term economic and environmental health of the
Pacific Northwest and northern California. The plan provides an
innovative approach to forest management to protect the environment
and to produce a predictable and sustainable level of timber sales.
It offers a comprehensive, long-term plan for economic development.
And it makes sure that federal agencies for a change will be working
together for the good of all the people of the region.
The plan is a departure from the failed policies of the
past, when as many as six different federal agencies took different
positions on various interpretations of federal law and helped to
create a situation in which, at length, no timber cutting at all
could occur because of litigation, and still environmentalists
believed that the long-term concerns of the environment were not
being addressed.
The plan is more difficult than I had thought it would
be in terms of the size of the timber cuts, in part because during
this process the amount of timber actually in the forest and
available for cutting was revised downward sharply, in no small
measure because of years of overcutting, and in a way that provides
an annual yield smaller than timber interests had wanted, and a plan
without some of the protections that environmentalists had sought. I
can only say that as with every other situation in life, we have to
play the hand we were dealt. Had this crisis been dealt with years
ago we might have a plan with a higher yield and with more
environmentally protected areas. We are doing the best we can with
the facts as they now exist in the Pacific Northwest.
I believe the plan is fair and balanced. I believe it
will protect jobs and offer new job opportunities where they must be
found. It will preserve the woodlands, the rivers, the streams that
make the Northwest an attractive place to live and to visit. We
believe in this case it is clear that the Pacific Northwest requires
both a healthy economy and a healthy environment and that one cannot
exist without the other.
I want to say a special word of thanks to the Vice
President, to the Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, to Agriculture
Secretary Mike Espy, to Labor Secretary Reich, Commerce Secretary
Brown, Environmental Protection Administrator Browner, Environmental
Policy Director Katie McGinty, and many others in our administration
who work together to bring all the forces of the federal government
into agreement not because they all agreed on every issue at every
moment, but because they knew that we owed the people of the Pacific
Northwest at least a unified federal position that would break the
logjam of the past several years.
This shows that people can work together and make tough
choices if they have the will and courage to do so. Too often in the
past the issues which this plan addressed have simply wound up in
court while the economy, the environment and the people suffered.
These issues are clearly difficult and divisive; you will see that in
the response to the position that our administration has taken. If
they were easy they would have been answered long ago. The main
virtue of our plan besides being fair and balanced, is that we
attempt to answer the questions and let people get on with their
lives.
We could not, we could not permit more years of the
status quo to continue where everything was paralyzed in the courts.
We reached out to hundreds of people, from lumber workers and
fishermen to environmentalists, scientists, businesspeople, community
leaders and Native American tribes. We've worked hard to balance all
their interests and to understand their concerns. We know that our
solutions will not make everybody happy. Indeed, they may not make
anybody happy. But we do understand that we're all going to be
better off if we act on the plan and end the deadlock and
divisiveness.
We started bringing people together at the Forest
Conference in April. In the words of Archbishop Thomas Murphy then,
we began to find common ground for the common good. As people
reasoned together in a conference room instead of confronting each
other in a courtroom, they found at least that they shared common
values: work and family, faith and a reverence for the majestic
beauty of the natural environment God has bequeathed to that gifted
part of our nation.
This plan meets the standards that I set as the
conference concluded. It meets the need for year-round, high-wage,
high-skilled jobs and a sustained, predictable level of economic
activity in the forests. It protects the long-term health of the
forests, our wildlife and our waterways. It is clearly
scientifically sound, ecologically credible, and legally defensible.
By preserving the forests and setting predictable and
sustainable levels of timber sales, it protects jobs not just in the
short term, but for years to come.
We offer new assistance to workers and to families for
job training and retraining where that will inevitably be needed as a
result of the sustainable yield level set in the plan; new assistance
to businesses and industries to expand and create new family wage
jobs for local workers; new assistance to communities to build the
infrastructure to support new and diverse sources of economic growth;
and new initiatives to create jobs by investing in research and
restoration in the forests themselves. And we end the subsidies for
log exports that end up exporting American jobs.
This plan offers an innovative approach to conservation,
protecting key watersheds and the most valuable of our old-growth
forests. It protects key rivers and streams while saving the most
important groves of ancient trees and providing habitat for salmon
and other endangered species. And it establishes new adapted
management areas to develop new ways to achieve economic and
ecological goals, and to help communities to shape their own future.
Today I am signing a bill sponsored by Senator Patty
Murray and Congresswoman Jolene Unsoeld of Washington and supported
by the entire Northwest congressional delegation to restore the ban
of export of raw logs from state-owned lands and other publicly owned
lands. This act alone will save thousands of jobs in the Northwest,
including over 6,000 in Washington State alone.
Today, Secretary Babbitt and Secretary Espy are going to
the Northwest to talk to state and local officials about how to
implement the plan and give to workers, companies and communities the
help they need and deserve. And soon we will deliver an
environmental impact statement based on the plan to the federal
district court in Washington State. We will do all we can to resolve
the legal actions that have halted timber sales, and we will continue
to work with all those who share our commitment to achieve these
goals and move the sales forward.
Together, we can build a better future for the families
of the Northwest, for their children and for their children's
children. We can preserve the jobs in the forest and we can preserve
the forest. The time has come to act to end the logjam, to end the
endless delay and bickering and to restore some genuine security and
rootedness to the lives of the people who have for too long been torn
from pillar to post in this important area of the United States.
I believe this plan will do that, and this
administration is committed to implementing it.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
SECRETARY BABBITT: Good morning. What the President
has outlined and delivered today is the plan to manage the federally-
owned forests in the Pacific Northwest. It's not a portion of a
plan, it's not a piece of a plan, it is the plan.
Now, the option chosen by the President, Option Nine, is
fundamentally sound. And the reason for that is that the President
at the outset laid down two important criteria. The first was that
the plan must be developed and the options must be worked out by the
most competent broad-based group of scientists that we could possibly
assemble from the Department of Agriculture, the Fish and Wildlife
Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Environmental Protection
Agency, Oregon State University, the University of Washington. That
scientific team has done its job and that is certainly the important,
indispensable beginning point for this plan.
The President's second mandate, of course, was that any
option presented to him for implementation must comply with existing
law and it is my belief, shared by other members of the Cabinet, that
the scientific team has put its stamp of approval on Option Nine and
that it does and will in every respect comply with the law.
Now, from here on, we must begin the arduous important
process of implementing Option Nine. And our instructions from the
President are simply to move as quickly as we possibly can to get
timber moving in the communities and into the mills. Now, there are
still decisions to be made along the way about the exact methodology,
about whether or not particular features of the plan can stand
modification as we move toward implementation.
What Secretary Espy and myself will be doing, beginning
today, is moving the Department of the Interior and the Department of
Agriculture out into the field to prepare sales, to implement sales
that have been done. I'm confident that if we move quickly on that
we can, by a conservative measure, certainly move 2 billion board
feet from federal land into the communities and the mills of the
Northwest during the coming year.
And I would only add that as Secretary Espy and I go to
Portland and Seattle today, it's our intention simply to break the
gridlock, to invite all of the different groups in the Pacific
Northwest to sit down with us, not to debate the pros and cons of
Option Nine, but to move ahead to get the timber moving into the
mills, to see if we can't, together, find innovative ways, make
procedural modifications and simply break the gridlock and, at last,
restore some predictability and some certainty to the future of the
Pacific Northwest.
Thank you.
SECRETARY ESPY: I'd just like to add my voice to others
and try to add some perspective to this. Today the President is
taking a bold and decisive step to move toward a resolution of the
forest management crisis that really has paralyzed the Pacific
Northwest. As Secretary of Agriculture, I agree with this plan. I
think that it is fair, balanced, comprehensive, and it is certainly
responsible.
Some will criticize the President for taking this move.
To the contrary, I believe that he deserves praise for attempting to
resolve an issue that no previous administration or Congress has been
willing or able to bring to closure. So let us not forget what
brought us here.
Under the Reagan administration, timber harvest in the
region grew beyond sustainable levels. Timber cuts were absolutely
pushed to the limit. And other nontimber resources suffered. Under
President Bush, we just simply saw more of the same; attention only
to the level of cut and inattention to the levels of consequence.
Agencies, in response to the problem, acted independently, not
cooperatively. Interior fought USDA, USDA fought EPA. We had no
union whatsoever. And while lawsuits brought forestry to a halt,
President Bush offered no direction and no plan to solve the issue.
When communities in the region began to feel the effects of the court
injunctions they asked for financial assistance to weather the storm.
And, again, the Bush administration refused.
And so, today, we, clearly, are not turning away from
this challenge. We're moving forward in a legally responsible and
scientifically sound way to bring this matter to closure. And in
doing so, we will not turn our back on the workers and the
communities of the region who desperately seek leadership and a
resolution to this crisis.
So I respectfully suggest that we view this President's
plan in its proper context. This is not the end that some critics
threaten, but a new beginning for the region. The economic future of
the rural communities of the Pacific Northwest still rest upon its
natural resources, but a sustainable economy must have as its basis
policies that sustain those natural resources. This plan, the
President's Forest Management Plan, provides that basis and the
foundation for a strong and sustainable economy out in the Pacific
Northwest.
And in conclusion, honestly we have three choices, by my
view, three options. The first is simply to do nothing, to allow the
forces out there to continue to challenge one another, and let the
whole situation blow up and disintegrate. Well, ladies and
gentlemen, that is not leadership.
The other option was simply to stand in a defiant
swagger and to thumb our nose at a federal district court and perhaps
to receive a contempt citation in the process. Well, that certainly
is not responsible.
So we, in fact, took the third option, the only option,
by our view. We're stepping up to the plate, we're taking our best
swing. This is leadership, this is responsibility, and this is
exactly what we're doing. Thanks. (Applause.)
SECRETARY REICH: I could stand here and not take any
heat at all. (Laughter.) Let me just say that I want to echo what
Secretary Babbitt and Secretary Espy have said, but also talk
specifically about jobs. Over the last two years, 20,000 jobs,
timber jobs have been lost in this region -- 20,000 jobs. That's
going to end. This new plan is going to actually create net jobs.
There will be some dislocations. Some people, some timber workers
will continue to lose jobs, nowhere near as many as have been losing
them before. But the plan calls for economic development, job
training, new jobs. We're going to focus economic development
assistance and also job training assistance on this area and help
people get new jobs that pay family wages, good wages. Jobs in
environmental remediation, jobs in higher value-added timber
manufacturing. Many jobs are out there and potentially available to
people in this area.
And, in fact, the direction we were going in -- do-
nothing -- not only was it creating no jobs, in fact, destroying a
lot of jobs -- 20,000 over two years -- but it was also potentially
destroying a lot of other jobs -- jobs related to preserving that
environment in the long-term. And, therefore, we are marking this as
something of a beginning for the Northwest, hopefully, in terms of
job-creation.
One thing we've tried to do again is focus all our
agencies on this task. It has been difficult, we've overcome, I
think, or at least partially overcome years and years of agencies
figuring that they were doing it alone, that their own mission had
nothing to do with any other agency mission. And through this
process the whole, hopefully, is greater than the sum of the parts.
We have job training, economic development. We have environmental
remediation. We have agencies working together and focusing their
attention on solving a problem.
Everybody's not going to be happy. In fact, everybody
is going to be a little bit unhappy and that's what happens when you
fight hard and work hard for a compromise. This is a compromise;
this is the best compromise available. Any of the options, any of
the options would have caused some job dislocation. This is the
least job dislocation; it is the best in terms of new job net
creation. And, therefore, we're very proud of where we're going.
The President deserves an awful lot of credit for his
leadership, his ability to take this on. Remember, nothing was being
done. This was absolute logjam. The President pulled us together,
pulled his team together, said get on with it, let's solve this
problem. And we're doing it.
Thank you. (Applause.)
SECRETARY BROWN: I'm obviously pleased to join this
morning with the President and Vice President in announcing a forest
plan that truly exemplifies the principle of sustainable economic
growth. By addressing long-term economic concerns and balancing
broad environmental needs, the President has indeed created a plan
that protects jobs and businesses, that furthers environmental goals
and that enhances the economic diversity of the Pacific Northwest.
As the President's representative to lead the federal
effort to help revitalize California's economy, I am particularly
gratified that loggers and timber towns in Northern California will
finally be free of the economic uncertainty that has haunted that
region for too many years.
For too long the timber industry has been paralyzed by
federal indecision while competing agencies supported contradictory
policies and the White House dodged its responsibility. President
Clinton has, in fact, acted decisively to end this grIdlock. The
President's plan helps put people back to work by allowing
significant timber sales which are already in the pipeline to go
forward. New jobs will, in fact, be created through the expanded
environmental restoration and research work provided for by the plan,
by growing eco-tourism and by the job training partnership act.
Funding for this program, which provides for job search assistance,
retraining and relocation help, will more than double under the
President's plan.
The President's program helps timber communities by
eliminating tax breaks for raw log exporters and providing incentives
for increased domestic processing. And it helps the timber industry
by establishing sustainable harvest levels that will ensure long-term
profitability. Companies will finally be able to hire and invest
based on reliable forecasts and predictable harvest levels.
The President's plan establishes a harvest level that
recognizes the critical importance of the region's timber industry.
It opens areas to the selective, sustainable harvest that the
industry, in fact, needs. And it creates stability and certainty,
the cornerstone of any business planning that is going to be
successful.
President Clinton's plan also takes into account the
broader economic needs of the Pacific Northwest. While his
innovative management approach protects the salmon and other
environmentally sensitive industries better than before, the
President has also provided funding that will speed economic
diversification of the affected regions.
Economic adjustment funds, worker retraining support,
infrastructure projects, even a summer jobs program will help lure
industries to the area and help existing industries expand, diversify
and, most importantly, put people back to work.
I strongly believe that the President's plan will
ultimately result in a more robust economy in America's timber
regions. By furthering both our long-term economic and environmental
needs, the President has demonstrated once again strong leadership.
This is the kind of bold response to changing economic circumstances
the American people voted for last November. I'm pleased to be here
with the President and Vice President and my fellow Cabinet members
to support this courageous and this visionary strategy. Thank you
very much. (Applause.)
ADMINISTRATOR BROWNER: Good morning. The President has
just made an announcement that is a courageous step forward for
environmentally sound forest management. Under the President's
leadership, five agencies that have been suing each other and using
their resources to fight each other in court have been able to come
together to work on a plan and to put forward a plan that will really
do right by the environmental system and the people of the Northwest.
At the heart of the policy that's being announced today,
and what makes this approach so novel and important is the protection
of watersheds. Watersheds are the critical environmental component.
By protecting the watersheds, we are protecting rivers, streams, the
viability of the old-growth forests and the species dependent upon
these natural systems. And, most importantly, we will avoid future
confrontation over individual species, like the salmon. By putting
together a watershed protection plan, we will be able to avoid the
haggling that has gone on for far too long.
The other thing that will occur because of the watershed
protection focus is that cities may realize a real cost, real dollar
savings. The city of Portland, who is, I think, looking at almost a
$200-million bill for a filtration system on their drinking water
system, may not have to spend that $200 million on filtration; they
may be able to spend it on something else. Why? Because we're going
to go upstream, we're going to make sure that the watershed is
protected and that the quality of the water coming to the city is
such that they don't have to filter it and spend that money.
The President has been able to see the forest, not just
the trees. And we at EPA look forward to working with our colleagues
across the federal government in the implementation of this milestone
resolution. We are very pleased to have been part of all the
discussions. We think it is a sound and important environmental
step. And we will work our best to see it implemented in a way that
is good for everybody. Thank you. (Applause.)
SECRETARY BABBITT: Okay, if there are any questions
we'll split them up and pass them around and see what we can do.
Q Secretary Babbitt, the 2 billion board feet that
you were talking about I think would be triple or more of what has
been -- while the injunction has been in place. Environmentalists
say that's way beyond sustainability. Secondly, is there anything in
the plan that would meet the environmentalists' concern about setting
aside as permanent protective reserves sections of the forest that
would be off limits to logging, including salvage, thinning and any
other practice?
SECRETARY BABBITT: Well, with respect to the projection
of 2 billion board feet during the coming year, I think it's worth
remembering that what the scientific team has told us is that under
the unified forest reserve, there should be a flow of about 12
billion board feet in a 10-year period, and that leaves a certain
amount of flexibility with respect to how that's allocated.
There are a variety of other issues here that I think
are going to give us some flexibility: a backlogged timber on Indian
reservations, which has been brought to our attention by the Pacific
Timber Council of Indian Tribes, and the backlog there is due to our
inability to do the timber sale preparation; that's something we can
take care of.
So I think there are a fair number -- obviously, there
are some sales which are already in the pipeline, which would be the
first ones that we can break loose. So I think it's a very realistic
estimate. We've heard the concerns of the environmentalists with
respect to the reserves. Again, the Unified Forest Plan lays out a
basic pattern of reserves. It does allow some forest practices,
particularly with respect to stands that are less than 120 years that
are not mature stands. And I think at this point the important thing
to say to the timber industry, the communities and the environmental
groups we're prepared to talk about those things. The basic Unified
Forest Plan is now in place, but that doesn't mean that we can't
modify and perfect it as we go along.
Q Does the plan allow for higher volume of cutting in
the first years of the 10-year period and then reduce, or is it
basically stable at 1.2 billion board feet over the period?
SECRETARY BABBITT: The plan, on its face, speaks of a
10-year cut within the areas under the planning process of 12 billion
board feet. It is our starting assumption that that should be spaced
in a roughly consistent, sustainable pattern across the 10 years.
There are a variety of issues outside the plan that I think make it
possible to bump that figure up considerably, consistent with the
plan in the immediate future.
Q The plan talks about watershed protection. Does
that include buffers on streams and rivers and on private lands? And
if so, how will you accomplish that?
SECRETARY BABBITT: The important feature of the Unified
Forest Reserve Plan that distinguishes it from some of the other
alternatives that were considered is that the process of constructing
the plan began with stream protection, with buffers laid over the
entire stream system on federal lands. The width of those buffers
varies by three criteria: whether or not the streams have salmon in
them or other fish, steelhead or others, at this time, or whether or
not they're permanent streams, somewhat less protection for
intermittent streams. So it is a very comprehensive process.
With respect to private lands, which I know is of
particular interest in Washington, I think there's some good news in
this forest plan because it will allow us for the most part to lift
the owl circles on the private lands -- not everywhere, but I think
in some large measure. So the private landowners will have a great
deal of flexibility and benefit from this plan.
Those issues will be worked out, according to what's
known as a 4D rule under the Endangered Species Act. But I think the
plan legitimately seeks to provide as much freedom as is consistent
with the overall legal objectives on private lands.
Q Will there be buffers on private lands or around
streams?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: We're still talking about that.
SECRETARY BABBITT: The answer is, we're going to sit
down in Seattle and Portland and discuss it.
Q Mr. Secretary, are you going to ask Judge Dwyer to
lift the injunction immediately in July, or will that not happen
until the end of the year?
SECRETARY BABBITT: No, no, we will proceed on expedited
track of a draft report and ask the judge to lift the injunction.
Q Based on a draft environmental impact statement?
SECRETARY BABBITT: Absolutely.
Q Other than the bill that President Clinton said he
was going to sign -- will any other parts of this plan proceed
legislatively?
SECRETARY BABBITT: Well, I think that the economic
package, which Secretary Reich can discuss to the extent you want to
follow it up, certainly presupposes some congressional action. I
think that's very likely.
Q If I may follow. But aside from funding, you're
not asking Congress for anything and will go ahead with or without
their blessing? You don't want fast track authority or anything like
that?
SECRETARY BABBITT: There are two separate issues here.
One is the plan itself. Now, you've heard very clearly from the
President his intention to direct the departments to prepare that
plan and submit it administratively back into the judicial process.
That reflects our view that that is the most expeditious, fastest,
direct route to getting timber flowing into the mills.
Now, with respect to the procedural issues, that is how
do we expedite the process of getting from here to there - I think
that is something we want to sit down and begin discussing with all
the parties -- the parties to the litigation, the interested parties
in the Pacific Northwest and all the others. I'm certain that as of
today what we're going to begin is to push the administrative
process. Now, whether or not that is sufficient I think is something
that we're going to need to discuss and watch among all the parties.
SECRETARY BROWN: Let me just mention one thing. We
haven't spent a lot of time talking about the economic impacts of
this, and it seems to me one of the most important things that we've
accomplished here is really encouraging economic diversification and
economic adjustment and economic growth. That is one of the key
points of the plan and strategy, as well as all of what we consider
to be courageous substantive decisions that were made.
I think that this process sets an important example for
how this administration intends to work together and pull together.
For years, there's been nothing but conflict between agencies of the
federal government pulling in opposite directions, not working as
part of a team. And here we've taken a very, very complex problem
with extraordinary leadership from the President of the United
States, and all of us who have been perceived of in the past as
representing different kinds of interests in America -- Bob Reich,
the workers of America and the Secretary of Commerce, business and
industry, and Secretary Babbitt and Administrator Browner, other
kinds of interests that were seemed disparate -- are working together
and are making it come out right; are sitting down and talking and
coming up with a rational plan, a rational approach to solve a
difficult problem.
I think we're as proud of this -- and the President is
-- of the process by which we pulled together as a team as we are
with the very sound kind of substantive judgments that have come out
of the plan.
Q Given the thousands of jobs that are being lost,
would the administration support a ban or tax on private log exports?
SECRETARY BABBITT: Well, the President has addressed
that issue with specific proposals to remove the subsidies which
currently operate to unbalance that decision in favor of log exports.
So at this time, the President's position with respect to private log
exports is we need to simply level the playing field.
Q Does the administration know yet where the money is
going to come from for assistance to the Northwest?
SECRETARY BABBITT: The great majority of the billion
and a half approximate over five years will consist of money which is
already programmed in the 1994 budget process. Another piece of it
will be reprogramming within our budgets and I think there may well
be some additional on top of that.
SECRETARY BROWN: A good deal of it is going to come
from the Economic Development Administration, the Commerce
Department, through the use of media grants. The purpose of those
grants are to assist distressed urban and rural communities in
economic recovery, and we intend to direct and target those grants in
that way to be helpful to the region that is affected.
MS. ROMASH: There will be a technical briefing after
this and people will be available to walk through specifically where
the money comes from and the numbers and all that.
SECRETARY BABBITT: What she's really saying is pull us
off before we get into deep water. (Laughter.)
Q Secretary Babbitt, you're going to be in Portland
later this afternoon. You're probably going to run into some people
from some of the timber towns. You're probably going to run into
some angry people from some of the timber towns there. What are you
going to tell them to expect and what are you going to tell them
about the disruptions that they're going to have? They're angry over
these proposals here.
SECRETARY BABBITT: What I intend to say in the timber
towns of Oregon and Washington is we're going to provide some
certainty, we're going to lift the injunctions, you're going to have
a predictable supply of timber, and we're looking at a timber year
coming up I think conservatively of 2 billion board feet. Now,
compared to what's gone on in the last few years, I think that's a
strong and positive direction.
We're going to sit down with those towns and discuss the
implications of the adapted management areas that are in the Unified
Forest Plan. I will remind the towns that the President's proposal
says that within the adapted management areas all logs must go to
local communities. And I think there are a variety of other issues
in this plan that are going to provide an unexpected amount of hope,
flexibility, wood earmarked for local mills and local industries that
don't necessarily appear in the gross figures that come out at the
very end of the plan. I think the detail in this case is very
important.
Thank you very much. Let's take one more. Why quit
while you're ahead? (Laughter.) Let me take another one.
Q Secretary Babbitt, despite the turnout of
congressional leaders here today, there were very few representatives
from the Pacific Northwest, including House Speaker Tom Foley. Does
that create problems for you? They are not particularly fond of the
plan at all.
SECRETARY BABBITT: Well, I certainly understand that
and I have had several extensive discussions with the Speaker,
listening to his concerns. They're deep, they're heartfelt, they're
thoughtful. What I have said to the delegation members and
especially to the Speaker is that as we move forward with this plan,
which the Cabinet members and the President feel is the best pathway
toward getting injunctions lifted and moving back toward some kind of
normalcy. We remain willing to listen to new information, to look at
the procedural aspects of this, to consider to continue to develop
the adapted management concept, to get back to the backlogs on Indian
reservations, to tailor the economic assistance.
And, ultimately, I suspect it's inevitable that the
Speaker and others will express their desire to reexamine the
statutes, and there are many of them, governing these processes.
And, of course, that is their prerogative and I'm sure that during
the coming years we'll be discussing that. In the meantime, what we
have to do is end the impasse. And I think that in the next few
years we're going to get a really good result with a really
substantial amount of timber flowing in and that's the very best
course of action at this point.
Thank you very much.
END11:14 A.M. EDT