Profile

Mark Rey

Position: Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment

Department: Department of Agriculture

Status: confirmed

The Undersecretary for Natural Resources and the Environment is responsible for the management of 156 national forests, 19 national grasslands, and 15 land utilization projects on 191 million acres in 44 states. This position is critical to setting the tone for the administration's public land policy and implementation.

• Rey spent nearly twenty years (1976-1994) in the employ of various "big timber' trade associations and organizations, including the National Forest Products Association, the American Paper Institute, and the American Forest Resources Alliance. He also served as vice president of forest resources for the American Forest & Paper Association, the country's leading advocate for logging in our national forests.

• Vociferously opposes the National Forest Roadless Conservation Policy, which would protect the last 1/3 of our nation's wild places from logging, mining, and other destructive activities.

• As a professional staff member to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, Rey authored and defended Larry Craig's version of the National Forest Management Act, which did away with citizen oversight committees and other environmental safeguards. Many of the bill's recommendations were almost verbatim duplications of those made by Rey's successor at the American Forest and Paper Association, Steven Quarles, at a hearing before the House resources committee. The Associated Press reported that "Twenty-three of Quarles' 28 recommendations appear in Craig's bill using substantially identical language.'

• In 1991, he opposed "Option 9,' a plan to designate habitat in the Pacific Northwest for the endangered northern spotted owl.

• At a speech given at UC Berkeley in October 2000, Rey stated: "Our public lands are now under the protection of sweeping laws, like the Endangered Species Act, enforced by powerful federal agencies. There is no emergency that warrants this unilateral exercise of executive authority.'

• Authored the infamous "salvage rider, ' which enacted a suspension of all environmental laws to give logging interests the green light to clear-cut old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest.

• Defended clear-cut logging as "compatible with rain forest ecology.'

• During his tenure with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Rey was a featured speaker at the 1996 and 1998 "Fly In for Freedom,' an annual event held by the "Wise-Use' umbrella organization, Alliance for America. In 1998, Rey suggested getting the attention of the Forest Service by limiting the agency's budget to "custodial management." The mission of the "Wise Use" movement as expressed by one of its founding members, Ron Arnold: "Our goal is to destroy, to eradicate the environmental movement. We want to be able to exploit the environment for private gain, absolutely."