A bill to fund the federal government emerged Wednesday night in Congress, and environmental groups are celebrating that it does not include policy riders to advance old-growth logging in the Tongass National Forest.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is a champion of the Tongass logging industry, and she would like to see the forest exempted from the “roadless rule,” a ban dating to the Clinton administration on new logging roads.
But the massive spending bill does not appear to contain the exemption Murkowski favors.
Nor does the bill have a provision blocking the 2016 Tongass Land Management Plan, which calls for a transition to young-growth timber.
The plan has support in Southeast Alaska from a coalition that includes fishermen and tourism-based business owners.
Murkowski said the transition would be too fast to keep the sawmills in business.
Though the pro-logging policies aren’t in the bill, a report that accompanies the legislation tells the Forest Service not to implement a final transition away from old-growth timber until it completes a tree inventory.
Bill reports are non-binding but agencies typically adhere to them.
Congress has to pass the spending bill by Friday to avoid a government shutdown. It would fund the government until the end of September.
