WASHINGTON (LEE) --Fuel-reduction logging and controlled-burn Forest Service projects on at least 1.2 million public acres would be exempt from the public comment and appeals process under a provision included in a spending bill that a key Senate committee recently approved.

Forest Service officials say the measure would reduce the cost and time for high-priority projects but environmentalists cried foul, saying it would cut the public out of decisions affecting public lands.

The measure would allow the Forest Service to exempt from the comment and appeals process controlled-burn projects of up to 4,500 acres and fuel-reduction logging projects of up to 1,000 acres.

The provision, authored by Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., would effectively overturn a court ruling that requires such projects to be subject to public comment. The congressional action comes as the matter remains under litigation, with arguments made in a federal appeals court last month.

The Senate Appropriations Committee recently approved the measure as part of a bill funding the Forest Service, Interior Department and other agencies for 2007. The full Senate still must pass the measure, which was not included in the House version of the spending bill.

"I have included the categorical exclusion language to advance many important Healthy Forests Restoration projects, including hazardous fuels reduction, prescribed burning, and the creating of wildlife openings," Burns said in a statement. "This provision will allow valuable Montana projects to go forward in a timely manner."

Frederick Norbury, associate deputy chief for the national forests, noted the measure would effectively reinstate regulations put in place in 2003 before the court challenge.

"We thought in 2003 it was the right thing to do and we still think it's the right thing to do," he said.

He said the activities tend to be minor ones and that the Forest Service through its internal processes must still consult with the public to determine what issues might arise and who might be affected.

"We think the public still has ample opportunity to get involved in these minor projects, even if the appeal regulation were put back the way it was in 2003," Norbury said.

The form that involvement would take varies according to project, with few people interested in minor activities such as cutting the grass and many interested in cutting trees, he added.

He also noted that even projects not subject to appeal are still subject to litigation.

"Everyone always has recourse to the courts," he said.

But a coalition of conservation organizations called the Unified Forest Defense Campaign came out against the proposal, saying the public should have the right to comment and appeal on "potentially harmful" logging projects on public lands.

"It would take the voice of the people away," said Cecilia Clavet of the national forest program at The Wilderness Society. "It's public land, it's our land, we've always had a right to have a say in what occurs... This would take away that right."

Clavet said the Forest Service has the ability under current regulations to expedite projects to protect communities from wildfires but that the rules changes could affect lands far from such areas.

"It's not necessarily a fuel reduction project, just a timber project," she said. That's obviously where we have major concerns."

She also disputed administration officials' claims that the comment and appeals process would delay projects.

"There's a normal process," she said. "It requires planning, looking at the area, taking public comment. That shouldn't be considered a delay."

The coalition includes Earthjustice, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, among many others.

Agriculture Under Secretary Mark Rey testified before Congress in November about how the court ruling would affect the Forest Service.

"Thousands of projects that we had found to have insignificant environmental impacts will now be subject to formal notice, comment and appeal, lengthening the time to conduct such activities, increasing their costs, and potentially increasing the amount of information that will be needed to document decisions," Rey testified.

Rey said the notice, comment and appeals process could add up to 135 days before a project could be approved and implemented. He said that as a result of the ruling, more than 800 specific projects on more than 1.2 million acres are subject to the comment and appeals process.

Those include about 210 prescribed burning projects for hazardous fuels reduction treatments on up to 4,500 acres each, he said. It also includes 260 small timber sales, each of which may include up to 1,000 acres of hazardous fuels treatments by thinning, up to 70 acres of live tree harvesting, up to 250 acres of salvaging of dead or dying trees, or up to 250 acres harvest to control insects or disease.

The debate stems from a 2003 Bush administration rule that allowed the Forest Service to exclude the fuel-reduction logging on up to 1,000 acres and controlled burns on up to 4,500 acres from environmental reviews and the administrative appeals process.

Five environmental groups sued that year over the harvest of burned trees on the Sequoia National Forest in California.

In 2005, U.S. District Judge James Singleton sided with them, saying the rule violated the 1992 Appeals Reform Act by not allowing public comment.

The Forest Service responded by halting 1,500 categorically excluded projects nationwide, including mushroom picking, weddings, hunting outfitters and the cutting of the annual U.S. Capitol Christmas tree.

In October, the judge clarified that the ruling did not apply to those kinds of projects. The Forest Service then resumed issuing permits for such projects. Timber sales, forest thinning, prescribed burns, oil and gas exploration and off-highway vehicle trails would remain subject to the public comment and appeals process, Singleton ruled.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the case last month.