Attorney General Lockyer Criticizes Bush Administration Plan to Increase Logging and Endanger Wildlife in Sierra Nevada National Forests

(SACRAMENTO) – Attorney General Bill Lockyer today issued the following statement regarding the objections his office filed today to the Bush Administration's proposal to revise the Sierra Nevada National Forest Framework Plan:

"The current plan – the product of more than a decade of planning, study and public review – has not even been given a chance to work, and the Bush Administration proposes to gut it. We're no longer surprised, but continually disappointed, by the Administration's rapid retreat from environmental protection and its willingness to sacrifice natural resources Californians cherish.

"These legally-defective revisions would increase timber harvesting by up to 400 percent and endanger the wildlife protections that stand as a centerpiece of the current plan. If adopted, the changes would represent a betrayal of treasured forests and the public trust."