The Fourmile Fire in Boulder, CO. US Forest Service photo.

On taking a walk on Labor Day, I looked up and thought, "This can't be good."  A huge plume of smoke filled half the sky.  Boulder's Fourmile Fire was on a rampage, destroying more than 100 homes about 15 miles from my own. 

I knew the smoke cloud would be followed by selfless firefighters, low-flying slurry bombers and water-laden helicopters.  I didn't count on the fact that while the fire still raged, and as families waited anxiously to find out whether their homes had survived, politicians would use the tragedy to push their agendas.

But they did.  Some with more accuracy than others.

Pine beetles killed these Colorado trees

In a hearing room on Capitol Hill last week, science met politics. And science appears to have come out on the short end.

The hearing heard testimony on a bill from Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) whose stated purpose is to lessen fire risk supposedly caused by millions of dead trees killed by pine beetles. The bill is intended to protect homes and watersheds in forested areas of the West. It would require the Forest Service to identify areas where beetle kill was causing a "current or future increased risk of catastrophic wildland fire," and would exempt logging in those areas from some environmental protection laws.

The problem, though, is that the science shows this bill is a solution in search of a problem.

Dome Peak Roadless Area, Colorado - Photo (c) Ted Zukoski

More than a decade ago, dedicated conservationists within and without the Forest Service began clamoring for a nation-wide policy to protect the last remnants of roadless lands across the National Forests. The rationales were many: providing solitude for wildlife, preventing wildfires (which occur most often near roads), protecting water supplies for cities and towns, and leaving the last scraps of land unharmed by the buldozer after a century of pressure from loggers, miners, and other development.

And after the most comprehensive public input process in the history of American government—more than a million comments from members of the public, hundreds of hearings and open houses, a comprehensive environmental review—President Bill Clinton signed the "Roadless Rule" into law with just a week remaining in his term. The rule proteced 58 million acres of America's last unroaded lands from auction, bulldozing and commercial logging.

But the Roadless Rule immediately came under assault. George W. Bush and the logging lobbyists he hired to run forest policy promptly set about dismantling the rule. And even before the rule had been signed, anti-environmental interests had filed the first of a barrage of lawsuits aimed at taking down the rule.

The rule had its defenders, however. Conservation groups, represented by my Earthjustice colleagues Jim Angell, Kristen Boyles, Tim Preso, Tom Waldo and others, fought off the attacks in court. And, for the most part, they won. Thanks to them, when the Bush Administration finally packed its bags, the Roadless Rule was bloodied but very much alive.

And now, nearly a decade after it was adopted, the Roadless Rule will celebrate another red letter day.

Advertisement in Washington, D.C. publications

Regional officials with Alaska's Tongass National Forest, the crown jewel of our national forest system, recently announced plans to log nearly 1,500 acres of old-growth forest in two roadless areas. The Central Kupreanof and Sue timber sales jeopardize intact blocks of old-growth habitat within one of the last remaining temperate rainforests in the world.

The logging projects contradict President Barack Obama's pledge, made as a presidential candidate, to support full protection of 58.5 million acres of our nation's roadless forests, which include 9.5 million acres in the Tongass. These roadless areas are some of our nation's last truly wild places.

Fortunately, the administration now has a tremendous opportunity to make good on Obama's promise. Sec. of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has taken on the responsibility of personally reviewing all proposed timber sales in roadless areas and can stop these projects with a pen stroke. In addition to blocking these timber sales, Sec. Vilsack needs to restore full protections to the Tongass under the Roadless Rule, because only then will old-growth stands in the Tongass truly be safe. Earthjustice and other groups are asking Sec. Vilsack to do exactly that in an ad that started running today in some Washington, D.C. publications.