WASHINGTON - More than 100 congressional representatives today joined 325 scientists and researchers, including Michael Soule, Gordon Orians and renowned Harvard scientist E. O. Wilson, and more than 100,000 citizens in opposition to the Bush administration's efforts to radically change how the public's 155 national forests are managed. The letters and emails ask the administration to withdraw proposed changes to the National Forest Management Act regulations, which govern all activities that take place in the nation's publicly-owned forests. Today marks the end of the public comment period on the proposal, which was announced in November 2002.

The proposed rule change would:

- Weaken safeguards for wildlife and wildlife habitats;
- Exempt forest plans from environmental review;
- Place sharp new limits on the ability of citizens to participate in the development of management plans for national forests;
- De-emphasize the priority placed on achieving ecological sustainability; and
- Reduce the role of science, scientists, and monitoring in forest planning.

The end result of the proposed changes would be to allow a dramatic increase in logging and the destruction of forests and habitat for many species of wildlife.

"With the voluminous calls from the public, the scientific community and Congress to reject the proposed forest management rules, it's clear that only a handful of timber industry lobbyists support them," said Anthony Ambrose of EPIC. "It's time the Bush administration begin listening to what the American people want for their forests and not just the timber industry."

Rep. Nick Joe Rahall (D-WV) and Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) authored the letter co- signed by 105 other members of the House of Representatives. It is the latest of four letters sent by senators and members of Congress since release of the proposal, including one from Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) and 10 other House Republican members calling for a review of the proposal by the National Academy of Sciences.

Unlike all other revisions of the National Forest Management Act regulations since 1979, the proposed rules were developed without the input of an independent committee of scientists authorized by the law. The regulations were just revised in 2000, after three years of public and scientific meetings held across the nation. The final 2000 revision was based on the recommendations of an independent committee of scientists.

"Excluding the input of scientists in this process is effectively rolling the dice on the future of many imperiled fish and wildlife species in the national forests," said Dominick DellaSala, Ph.D., the director of World Wildlife Fund's Klamath Siskiyou office and one of the authors of the scientist's letter. "These revisions eliminate protections for hundreds of species and shut scientists out of important forest policy decisions. That will inevitably lead to more species being listed under the Endangered Species Act in the future and return the nation's woods to gridlock."

Details of the administration's proposal:

- Allow forest plans to be exempted from the analysis of their environmental impacts required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

- Undermine public participation in the forest planning process. The rule would discount petitions, cards and other methods citizens use to contact their government. For this proposed rule change, the Forest Service filtered certain e-mail comments and did not include them in the official record.

- Do away with the "population viability" rule that requires the Forest Service to maintain native species of wildlife in each national forest. The rule provides a clear yardstick for assessing the impact of logging on wildlife conservation and on forest ecosystem health. The proposed regulations would also make surveying wildlife merely optional.

- The administration's proposal adopts at least eight major recommendations made by the association that represents the nation's largest logging companies, the American Forest and Paper Association.

- National forests encompass 8 percent of the United States and harbor much of the nation's biological diversity. They are home to more than 3,000 species of birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, and amphibians and more than 10,000 plant species, including 17 percent of federally endangered and threatened species and more than 2,000 species designated as sensitive. National Forests have significantly more populations of rare species than any other system of public lands.