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Lawmakers seek answers on Forest Service's carbon credits plan |
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Two Massachusetts Democrats want the Forest Service to better detail
its plan to sell carbon credits to fund reforestation projects on
national forests.
In a letter to Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell, Rep. Edward Markey,
chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and
Global Warming, and Sen. John Kerry expressed concerns about the
unregulated carbon offset market and the agency's proposal to sell
carbon credits. Kerry and Markey also raise concerns over forest
management, salvage logging and tracking of carbon credits.
Last month, the Forest Service and National Forest Foundation
proposed selling credits to individuals seeking to offset their
greenhouse gas footprint by measuring carbon stored in trees on areas
reforested after wildfires, tornados and other catastrophic events.
The plan does not guarantee the national forest land will be
placed in conservation easements or will not be logged or developed in
the future, and the Forest Service is not creating a new classification
for the project areas.
Credits will first be sold to reforest about 500 acres of the
Custer National Forest in Montana burned by the 2002 Kraft Springs Fire
and about 1,400 acres of Idaho's Payette National Forest in Idaho
damaged by a tornado last June. However, those reforestation projects
may not sequester enough carbon to offset CO2 lost or released in the
original catastrophic event, Kimbell told reporters last month
(Greenwire, July 26).
"The intent here is to have sites that are again storing
carbon and storing carbon at a good rate, not necessarily to replace
all that carbon that was lost to the atmosphere in a wildfire," Kimbell
said. "That would be a difficult thing to measure and a difficult thing
to do in a short period of time."
Markey and Kerry say forest managers seem confused what the
mission of the project is. "Conflicting statements by agency personnel
in related news reports create the impression there may be some
confusion as to the goals of the programs and the responsibilities of
agency managers," the members wrote.
Laurie Wayburn, president of the Pacific Forest Trust, which
sells carbon credits in California, also questioned the Forest
Service's plan, citing the lack of guarantees forests will be managed
for long-term carbon storage and noting that since the agency is not
transferring any ownership right, nothing is actually being sold.
"This is basically a new way to pay for what the NFF was
trying to raise donations for existing plans/goals of the USFS,"
Wayburn said in an e-mail.
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