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Roadless Protection and Republican Values

by REP Policy Director Jim DiPeso
statement at a press conference, Seattle, Washington; September 24, 2001

Hello. My name is Jim DiPeso. I’m with REP America, the national grassroots organization of Republicans for environmental protection.

I wish I didn’t have to be here. But we’re speaking up to help President Bush get re-acquainted with some history and let him know that protecting our national forest roadless areas is good Republican policy.

It might interest you to know that the first proposal to stop building taxpayer-subsidized roads came from a Republican administration -- Richard M. Nixon’s. Too bad President Nixon let his Agriculture Secretary talk him out of it. Protecting roadless areas was and still is a great way to cut government waste. Protecting roadless areas was and still is a great way to protect our American natural heritage.

First, let me tell you about the fiscal angle. The Forest Service has a roads maintenance backlog of $8.5 billion – that’s b as in budget-buster. It is not good fiscal policy for the Forest Service to build roads it cannot afford in order to support timber sales that don’t pay their own way. Republicans like the idea of reining in government spending. We can start by taking the good men and women of the Forest Service out of the road-building business. Then, they can look taxpayers in the eye and say ‘we are spending your money wisely.’ That’s a true conservative value.

Protecting our American heritage is another true conservative value. Nearly a century ago, Theodore Roosevelt set aside 150 million acres of national forests, to protect them from land grabbers and special interests . Our forests here in Washington are part of the Roosevelt legacy – the Colville, the Umatilla, the Wenatchee, the Okanogan, the Olympic, the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie, and the Gifford Pinchot. Roosevelt protected these forests for all Americans, both in his time and all who came after – you and me and our 280 million fellow American citizens.

Two weeks ago, I hiked around the Dark Divide roadless area of the Gifford Pinchot. All around the business of nature carried on as it has since time immemorial. Butterflies and bees visited the flowers. Mountain goats navigated up dizzying slopes. The wind pushed clouds from the sea to the top of Mount Adams. This wild legacy was the gift of visionary leaders of the past century. Now we have a chance to pass on a legacy to those who will follow us in the 21st, century, the 22nd century and beyond.

Mr. President, protect our national forest roadless areas. We’ve said it many times and we’re saying it again. We don’t need a recount. Remember your history and your duty. Learn from the wisdom of the old Rough Rider himself, when he said. "Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of ensuring the safety and continuance of the nation."