WASHINGTON (AP) -- A compromise forest bill being pushed in the Senate would sharply increase spending for cutting trees and underbrush to reduce the risk of wildfires in national forests, senators said Wednesday.
The Senate bill, the result of bipartisan talks among 10 senators and the Bush administration, would authorize $760 million a year for so-called hazardous fuels reduction projects _ a $340 million increase over current funding.
About half the work would be restricted to areas near homes and communities, while the other half could occur in more remote areas where larger, more commercially valuable trees grow.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who helped negotiate the agreement, called it a balanced bill that would help restore overgrown forests while protecting old-growth trees. Sens. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., Mike Crapo, R-Idaho and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., also were involved in the talks.
Wyden and other advocates said the bill would shorten the period for administrative and judicial review of timber sales and other logging projects, while preserving the public's right to participate in forest decisions.
They said the bill's most important feature was the increased funding for cutting trees and other fuel-reduction work, which involves removing small trees and underbrush that can feed fires. The Senate bill rejects a House plan _ opposed by environmentalists _ that would rely primarily on commercial sales of larger trees to fund the fire-prevention work.
Environmentalists welcomed the increase in funding but questioned why the bill would only require 50 percent of the thinning work to be done near homes and communities, leaving millions of acres of remote forests open to logging.
The groups also called language protecting old-growth forests weak.
Jay Ward, conservation director of the Oregon Natural Resources Council, called the bill ``dangerous'' for not setting limits on the age or diameter of trees that can be cut and for not specifically protecting remote, roadless areas of the forest.
Crapo, whose state was damaged by a number of wildfires this year, called such criticism off base.
``The compromise here, which I think is viable, is to let forest managers make the decisions, but with a requirement that they protect the old-growth,'' he said.
