Oregon Loggers Outraged Over Secretary’s Decision to Cut the WOPR
July 20, 2009 Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis 
Odell lake sits along the crest of the Oregon Cascades, near Wilamette Pass. Courtesy of Flickr.com.
Not everyone is cheering Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s decision to “withdraw” the Western Oregon Plan Revisions, which rezoned 2.6 million acres of federal public forests in Oregon as part of conserving the habitat of the northern spotted owl. The rezoning- now gone- was also a boom for the region’s logging industry.
Jim Geisinger, executive vice president of Associated Oregon Loggers, said, “We really believe what the secretary did was a breach of public trust. That Bureau of Land Management plan was five years in the making and complied with all of the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act as well as the National Environmental Policy Act.
“There was extensive public input and for the secretary to just withdraw the record of decision arbitrarily really is unprecedented. It is unfortunate that the secretary wouldn’t even allow the plan to be presented to a court for a decision.”