Clear-cut the timber rules, beetle foes say

U.S. Forest Service land managers need more latitude and the forest-management industry more certainty if the mountain pine beetle is to be repelled, or at least contained, in Colorado’s high country, witnesses testified Monday before a congressional field hearing.

The bark-beetle epidemic in Colorado’s national forests is an emergency, eight of nine witnesses told the panel. The millions of dead and dying trees that turn red and then into denuded gray skeletons pose the threat of fire and economic dispruption, they said.

The hearing was conducted by members of the House Resource Committee’s subcommittees on water and power and national parks, forests and public lands.