The watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is reporting that the EPA is censoring public comments and warnings of its professional staff in its reports on the changes to the Clinton-era roadless rule. The EPA allegedly deleted comments about a host of environmental problems, ranging from impaired public drinking water to spreading invasive plants, from comments it submitted to the U.S. Forest Service on November 26th.
This past July, the Federal Government moved to replace a Clinton moratorium on building roads in previously undeveloped portions of the national forest system with a plan that generally allows road building unless the host state objects and submits its own plan for protecting in-state roadless areas. The U.S. Forest Service called for comments on this new plan, and according to PEER the comments issued by the EPA were far from complete.
The initial draft of EPA comments reportedly included issues such as the deterioration of water quality, loss of wildlife habitat, the $8.4 billion backlog “for road repair and maintenance of existing roads” in national forests and also asked to give states more than 18 months to plan for initiating their own protection plans.
According to PEER, these issues were all excluded from the final draft, and dismissed as “a rant” by Steven Shimborg, a political appointee within the agencys Office for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. As a result, EPAs final letter raised no opposition to the plan that opens roadless areas to logging and oil and gas exploration.
