I am no super-environmentalist by any means--I truly believe in balancing environmental concerns with logging interests in the state of Oregon (if that balance can be found--but even this move by the Bush administration seems to me to have crossed the line. The Oregonian's Michael Milstein explains the situation in "Bush ready to reshape federal forests" as such:

President Bush enters his second term poised to refashion the Northwest's public forests, reviving some logging after its near collapse while curtailing environmental reviews that opponents use to restrain cutting.

His actions over the next four years may fell more old-growth trees, reconsider safeguards for the northern spotted owl and shrink the U.S. Forest Service -- the biggest federal land manager in Oregon and Washington. Together the moves could rebalance federal land use by stressing logging for jobs and revenue -- and as a tool to clear overgrown, flammable stands.

Milstein lays out the litany of policies and regulations the Bush administration will seek to overturn in the effort to allow nearly unrestricted logging in Oregon, something the denizens of the state surely do not want. Although Oregonians have time and again made it clear that they want environmental interests balanced with economic ones, Bush wants no such balance whatsoever, and as a result risks damaging Oregon's landscape for generations to come. I certainly hope newly-reelected Senator Ron Wyden will stand up to the Bush administration on this issue.