new plan from bush

[smketer]

Well Mr. Bush has a guy to head up the wildfire protection dept, I have heard that he is all for logging and then having guys burn. So get your terra torches ready!

Its about time that we can thin the forestes, and put fire back into them.

Stay Safe,

[NJFFSA16]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration has named two veteran
administrators to oversee efforts to fight fires in national
forests.
Allan Fitzsimmons, an environmental consultant who served in the
Reagan and senior Bush administrations, is the new wildland fuels
coordinator, while Corbin Newman, a budget official with the Forest
Service, is the new coordinator of the National Fire Plan.
The appointments were announced by Interior Secretary Gale
Norton and Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, respectively.
Fitzsimmons has been an intense critic of federal attempts to
apply safeguards across broad ecosystems such as the forests of the
Northwest. He advocates limited federal regulation in favor of
private sector solutions to environmental problems.
In his new role, Fitzsimmons will work with a team of top
officials at Interior and Agriculture to plan and execute forest
thinning, or selective logging, in the name of reducing fire danger
across 190 million acres of the West. President Bush announced the
so-called Healthy Forests initiative last week.
Fitzsimmons said his goal in executing the president's forest
policy is not to tilt toward either heavy logging or excessive
protections.
"The intent is to get that pendulum as close to the center as
you can," he told The Oregonian. "It's not devious. It's
certainly not a cynical attempt to turn chain saws loose from sea
to shining sea with smoke from forest fires as a cover," as some
environmentalists charge.
Fitzsimmons' appointment, which is not subject to Senate
approval, was greeted warily by the environmental movement.
"It tips their hand on their plans to use economics to drive it
all, not ecological considerations," said Pete Morton, a resource
economist with The Wilderness Society who has traded barbs with
Fitzsimmons in scientific journals.
Newman, a 25-year Forest Service veteran, will oversee efforts
to fight fires on federal lands, expected to cost nearly $2.3
billion in the current fiscal year.
He has been budget coordinator for the National Forest System
for 2 1/2 years and was a forest supervisor in Michigan and
Pennsylvania before that.