WHEN THE National Forest Management Act (technically an amendment to the 1974 Renewable Resources Planning Act) was passed in the fall of 1976, it was widely praised by representatives of the forest industry, by representatives of the leading conservation organizations, by the Forest Service, and by foresters generally. Extensive debates over a period of months and many carefully engineered compromises had led to an act which was accepted by persons and groups of normally quite divergent interests. There was a suspicion even then that some of the apparent harmony was only skin deep. As John Hall of the National Forest Products Association said at the time, "When the chief of the Forest Service, the Sierra Club's Washington, D.C., representative, and I say that the 1976 act is generally a reasonable and workable statute—and we have each made such statements—each of us may be reading a different act."
The act required the secretary of agriculture to issue regulations to implement the act within two years. It established a group of scientists as advisors to the secretary to aid in drafting these regulations. Numerous meetings, open to the public, were held in various parts of the country, various drafts were circulated at those meetings, and draft regulations were published in the Federal Register on August 31, 1978. Unsatisfied with the Forest Service's efforts, a forest industry group and environmental groups each formulated their own alternative regulations. In a highly unusual step for a government agency,' the secretary of agriculture published their proposals as part of his own statement in the Federal Register.
Once published, these proposed regulations drew a great deal of criticism by as wide a range of groups as had joined in praise of the law. No one, it appears, is happy or even tolerant of the draft regulations. The Izaak Walton League, for example, said in part as follows: "The regulations are a disappointment. The Forest Service should go back to the drawing board and return with new regulations reflecting the intent of Congress.
The regulations were still under consideration at the end of 1978, although the statutory date for their publication in final form had long been passed. It is now fairly clear that the near universal agreement when the act was passed represented a transitory euphoria. The hard realities of making the act work have faced the Forest Service, and it has been unable to respond in ways that have won the approval of any large or important group interested in the national forests. However the final regulations may ultimately be phrased, it seems highly probable that the struggle over implementation of the act will continue, and not unlikely that efforts be made to change it or at least its implementation.
During 1978 the Forest Service also published its draft environmental statement, Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE II), its second attempt to identify areas within the national forests suitable and desirable for wilderness area designation. This statement also drew widespread criticism, ranging from charges that too much productive forest was being "locked up" to complaints that the planning procedures of the 1976 National Forest Management Act were being short-circuited. For 1979, it seems fairly clear that the management of the national forests will remain a controversial and political issue.
A version of this article appeared in print in the January 1979 issue of Resources magazine.
